Prelude: When The Lights Went Out
It happened one dawn—unforeseeable, unavoidable.
I was stitching words together, chasing thought into sentence, when suddenly, everything went black. The hum of the fan stopped, and silence filled the room like a held breath.
I surrendered to sleep.
By daylight, the mystery unfolded: someone had cut and stolen six meters of electric wire from our meter. A neighbor found the severed ends, copper glinting like a wound.
That theft was more than petty crime—it was omen.
The economic crisis had crept into our neighborhood, quiet as hunger, cruel as necessity.
And I realized: force majeure is not always typhoon or earthquake.
Sometimes it arrives as a man with pliers in the dark, desperate enough to steal light itself.
And sometimes, it arrives not in the alleys of our neighborhood, but in the marble halls of power—where senators cloak comedy in calamity.
The darkness I felt at home becomes the same darkness that now shadows the Senate, where words like force majeure are bent into punchlines.
“War/gera/digmaan sa Gitnang Silangan na nagreresulta na ng terorismo sa ibat ibang parte ng mundo. Ang napipintong pagdawit ng Pilipinas sa China-Taiwan conflict. Hindi po ba ito force majeure?”
Padilla’s Glamor
According to legal experts, the justification offered by Senator Robin Padilla for remote Senate voting based on force majeure does not align with existing Philippine law and jurisprudence.
Reading Padilla’s comments, I don’t know whether to laugh or to pity him.
Laugh–because he has no traditional legal or political background, only the swagger of movie actor once crowned the “Bad Boy” of Philippine cinema.
Pity—because of his own wisecracking about his “baptism of fire” in the Senate plenary, where English words became Webster’s weapons and journals his lifeline.
“Nahihirapan lang ako pag nag-e-Englishan na, medyo ‘pwede dahan-dahan lang? Gano’n. Kaya mahalaga’yung journal eh, kaya binabasa ko ‘yung journal kasi nadun lahat eh, mahalaga ‘yun.”
“Lalo ‘pag nagtatalo na. ‘Yun naglalabasan ng mga Webster doon. Medyo dumudugo tenga ko. Hindi naman ako pinagsalita eh.”
“Ang journal ko, may mga linya. ‘Pag may linya ‘yun ibig sabihin kailangan ko ng dictionary.”
My knee-jerk reaction: he was trying to look cute to the interviewer, just like in the movies. Or perhaps, he’s simply had nothing between his ears.
Satirical White Paper
And so, my heart went out to Robin Padilla—so humanely that I was inspired to craft, in his behalf, a mock white paper:
In Defense of Remote Voting by Force Majeure
Honorable colleagues, in the spirit of jurisprudence and cinematic improvisation, I rise to defend the sacred right of remote voting under the doctrine of force majeure.
For though the Civil Code speaks of typhoon and earthquakes, I submit that the Senate must also recognize the calamities of broken hands, prison schedules, and fugitive staircases.
The Requisites of Force Majeure
Independent Will
Senator Ronald Dela Rosas decision to hide in a bunker was not of his own will. It was dictated by the sudden appearance of NBI agents wielding arrest warrant like ninja star. His escape up the stairs was involuntary, his tumble inevitable.
Unforseeability and Inevitability
Who could have foreseen that a man trained in police combat would be defeated by a flight of stairs? His fractured hands, proudly displayed to the press, are living proof that destiny itself conspired against his attendance.
Impossibility of Performance
Senator Estrada and Senator Villanueva, soon confined in their “administrative retreats” with matching orange couture, cannot possibly walk into the Senate hall. Their thumbs, however, remained un-handcuffed—thus remote voting is the only feasible performance.
Freedom from Negligence
None of these senators were negligent. They merely obeyed the laws of gravity, the Ombudsman, and the Bureau of Jail Management. The calamity was thrust upon them.
Conclusion
Therefore, by the power vested in me as the Senate’s resident action star, I declare that remote voting is not only justified but heroic. Let us not deny our colleagues the chance to cast their votes from bunkers, bars, or behind bars. For in the theater of democracy, every actor deserves a role—even if performed via Zoom.
The Jester’s Mask
Kidding aside.
Sometimes I see Padilla through the lens of the Jester Archetype—the clown who, by jest, reveals uncomfortable truths. His comic fumbling in the Senate exposes how fragile our institutions have become, how easily solemn law is bent into slapstick. Like a mirror in a carnival, he diverts—but in distortion, we glimpse reality.
He is the Senate’s fool, but in being fool, he unmasks the folly of others.
The Larger Picture
Looking at the wider landscape, I cannot ignore the shadow of former President Duterte—now detained at The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity. His presidency, malevolent in tone and consequence, seems to have birthed a dire political aftermath.
The Senate today, with its decline into parody, is the Creature spawned by Duterte’s Frankenstein politics.
When the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte was shelved by a compliant Senate and Supreme Court, competence was traded for convenience, independence for allegiance.
When senators now invoke force majeure to justify remote votes for fugitives and detainees, it is the echo of a culture that normalized bending rules for loyalty’s sake.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, the Senate staggers forward—stitched together by fear, loyalty, survival, and expediency—yet terrifying in its grotesque parody of law.
The Jester and the King of Comedy
Thus, Padilla’s force majeure is more than comic relief. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise: a legislature that has become theater, a democracy that has become cinema.
And here, I cannot help but recall the humble words of Dolphy, the King of Comedy.
Dolphy feared disgrace, feared wasting the people’s vote. That humility is worlds apart from Padilla’s swagger—an actor who leapt into politics without fear of shame, but with bravado that now bends law into slapstick.
Parting Shot
Sometimes it arrives as a man with pliers in the dark, desperate enough to steal light itself. Such an act was born of poverty, a symptom of crisis.
Yet in the Senate, poverty of judgment breeds another calamity: electing entertainers to legislate, turning governance into spectacle.
The wire cut in the alley mirrors the cut in our democracy—both leaving us in the dark.
Yes, I feel pity for Padilla. But more than that, I pity the Filipino people who crowned him in topping the 2022 senatorial election.
For in their choice, the Senate itself became a stage where comedy masquerades as law.
Content & editing put together in collaboration with Bing Microsoft AI-powered Co-pilot & Google Gemini
Head image created by Bing
Still photos courtesy of Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Manila Bulletin, Kami.com, POLITIKO, & IMDb
No comments:
Post a Comment