SENATE AS NEXT AQUINO RUBBER STAMP

Recently saying "New Senate majority waiting for sign to oust Enrile" (Inquirer 10/22/2012), Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago may have wittingly or unwittingly spilled the beans as to what ulterior move President Aquino has in mind: to make the Senate its next rubber stamp.

Everybody knows he has done that to Congress, as evidenced by the blitzkrieg approach by which he had ordered congressmen to impeach Corona.  It is still a bit doubtful that with Corona out and Sereno in, he has similarly succeeded in the high tribunal.  On the one hand,  most of the magistrates had been clearly insulted and lost a great deal of morale with Sereno's appointment as CJ.  On the other hand,  the high court has still to rule on the final fate of the Hacienda Luisita case, at least among several other critical issues still pending there,  in which the President has a personal stake. The latter would then be the turning point on whether we should call his incumbency "Aquino government" or merely "Aquino administration." 

Back to the Senate, Santiago was right that Enrile's potential ouster could arise out of his reluctance to endorse two of the administration's pet legislative agendas:  the Reproductive Health and the Sin Tax bills. Incidentally, Santiago is principal sponsor of the former, and has also filed her own version of the latter,  which is much closer to the incremental P60-B tax take that Aquino and his allies in the Lower House had always wanted than Recto's relatively watered-down tax proposal of P15-B, which Enrile is in turn  more or less endorsing.  Except for Sen. Trillanes, who has been quite vocal in his desire to oust Enrile, no other senator has yet voiced out his dislike for Enrile as Senate President.  And so, Santiago was just telling the truth -- well, something she might not have done if she were not leaving the Senate soon in favor of the post awaiting her at the  International Court of Justice -- that senators are just waiting for the sign, which certainly, though Santiago didn't say it, can only come from none else but President Aquino.     

At any rate, whether or not Enrile would be eventually ousted still remains everybody's wild guess.  On one hand, I refuse to believe that at this point in his long political career, Enrile can still be intimidated. Methinks he has grown amply immune to presidential influence.   He was certainly right saying he holds no Torrens Title to the Senate presidency, although he believes being just an ordinary senator would give him better freedom  to vocally oppose his peers than, at least initially, remaining neutral as Senate President.  On another, I believe President Aquino is not too naive to realize that, just in case, his voicing out the signal to oust Enrile and to replace him with a truer ally (Drilon most probably) simply because of Enrile's refusal to approve the additional, repeat: additional, P60-B sin taxes for cigarette and liquor that he lusts for,  may sooner or later bounce back to him in terms of even much higher and no longer curable budget deficits in the years to come. (As a matter of fact, that P60-B has been factored into next year's budget.)   For, indeed, an additional P60-B is absolutely unachievable.  Based on reliable records -- look at the Business Day's annual listing of top Philippine corporations -- the local cigarette and wine industry has been averaging only about P12-B in combined net profits every year.  Moreover, the President is neither naive to realize that with or without his behest, the RH Bill has already a very very slim chance of  passage in the current Congress.   

But whether or not Enrile will remain Senate President is the least of my concerns in this write up. It is rather that from the looks of it, President Aquino has discovered an even surer way than what Marcos had in his time to make the legislative  -- if not as much yet the judicial -- branch of government his virtual rubber stamp.  I mean, Marcos used the military, Aquino uses the pork barrel.