Susan’s Notes
By Susan Palmes-Dennis
ROCKINGHAM, North Carolina—The midterm elections here in the US are still in November but this early there had been furious jockeying between the Republicans and the Democrats as the winners would determine how the American electoral map would be drawn in the 2028 elections.
We’ll talk about this later here in this column but first, depending on when this piece will see print, we talk about next Monday’s session in the Senate where the majority bloc will vote on whether or not to amend their rules to allow online voting by their somewhat disgraced members. And we’re not only talking about the fugitive Sen. Rogelio ‘Bato’ dela Rosa whose flight from justice has cast the integrity and reputation of the Upper House well beneath the eyes of the public.
Joining dela Rosa in the ‘slammer’ so to speak—if captured, Bato will be shipped off to join former president Rodrigo Duterte in the Hague, Netherlands for a trial on charges of crimes against humanity in relation to the drug war killings—will be Sen. Jinggoy Estrada who faces plunder charges due to the multi-billion peso flood control projects which he allegedly benefitted from. Oh, both Senators Chiz Escudero and Joel Villanueva were also implicated as well.
As if they don’t have enough troubles, Sen. Robinhood Padilla and his relatives will be charged with obstruction of justice for supposedly aiding Sen. Bato’s ‘escape.’ Because of this, those in the majority bloc like Padilla and Sen. Rodante Marcoleta are pushing to amend the Senate House rules that will allow them to cast their votes online in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.
This special exemption, if approved, will be a resounding collective slap on the faces of the Filipino people. Former senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes were not allowed to vote while they were jailed on charges—de Lima especially was disbarred from joining Senate committee hearings as well courtesy of trumped up charges against her filed by the Duterte regime—and now the shoe is on the other foot as far as Duterte’s allies are concerned.
If anything, those in the majority bloc should face the charges against them and NOT be allowed to vote in the impeachment trial since they are compromised through and through. With what happened to Bato dela Rosa, there’s certainly hypocrisy and double standards at play on the part of the Dutertes and their allies in allowing Bato and the others to vote online in the impeachment trial. In this regard, they are saying ‘it’s rules for thee but not for me.’
Despite Padilla’s ridiculous claims of ‘force majeure’ as basis for allowing them to vote online, these lawmakers should not employ every excuse and alibi in their employ just so they can cast their vote on VP Sara’s impeachment. In that sense, the charges leveled at these senators effectively incapacitate them in performing their mandate which includes sitting as judges in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara.
While the Senate leadership coup was par for the course, the ‘scripted drama’ of Bato’s escape was a national disgrace that justified the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) position that the Dutertes still wield a vast powerful influence in the national government’s machinery. As it stands, the Supreme Court is the remaining bastion of institutional credibility and integrity in the government hierarchy.
And now the past is catching up with dela Rosa and all other lawmakers who still think they are unaccountable and impervious to sanctions under the law. What goes around comes around and while former House speaker Martin Romualdez and fugitive ex-lawmaker Zaldy Co have a lot to answer for, the former administration officials and Vice President Sara should have their day in court—a right that was denied to the victims of the relentless drug war killings.
Wasn’t it the Romans who said ‘let justice be done, though the heavens fall’? If Robinhood Padilla is worth his salt as a duly elected senator of the Philippine Republic, he and the others who got elected in 2022 should live by that mantra. But what does one expect of a former convict who got jailed and merely rode on the wave of his showbiz popularity to get himself elected?
As I said, the US midterm elections are still six months away but the Republicans and Democrats are slugging it out for dominance since the winners especially in Congress would likely affect how the Trump administration would be able to implement their policies for the American people, notably in the enforcement campaign against illegal aliens at the border.
There are a lot of interesting candidates like those in Los Angeles but what’s being headlined nowadays is socialist communist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—yes, I described him as socialist communist for that is what he is—who is being promoted by the mostly leftwing US mainstream media for his campaign against landlords and building owners. Reading about him, I thank God I live in mostly conservative North Carolina.
But make no mistake, the far left/extremist left elements of the US Democrat party as exemplified by Mamdani and New York legislator Alexandria Casio-Cortez are working double time to promote broader American acceptance of socialism/communism under the guidance of course of communist panderer Sen. Bernie Sanders. And there are leftist socialist/communist mayors who share in their twisted ideological beliefs.
There’s a lot of ground to cover on this and if I weren’t so distracted with family concerns I would probably write about them more. But there are still so many pressing issues that continually beset the Philippines including of course the domestic political landscape in Cagayan de Oro City and Misamis Oriental that I would be remiss not to talk about them first. Anyway, November is still a long way off, so it’s no rush.
