All are talking about transparency, credibility, truthfulness, and the people’s will – and they are saying them with equal vigor and earnestness – all of them in that special committee.
So, why are they endlessly quarreling over the minutest details which they often tend to blow up as critical points of prolonged disagreements?
Of course, it is their right to speak up – and always, they exhaust that right, sometimes with arrogant pretensions – but they must also have the sensitivity to think of the public that is watching them and losing its patience.
Being lawmakers they are expected to be legalistic in their approach to their kind of work, but such legalistic thinking should not invade their minds to the point of being destructive of the national cohesion that we are struggling to build.
The fact is that the increased legal confrontations in the 22-man joint committee is the culprit in the delay in the counting of votes, promoted by the obliging attitude of the joint chairs – and the singlemindedness of opposition members to delve into the smallish details of whatever is there or not there in the Certificates of Canvass.
Malacañang has pointedly made this clear when it asked opposition members "not to hold the nation hostage with their dilatory tactics."
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye, who made the statement, was referring in particular to the four-hour filibuster of opposition Senator Aquilino Pimentel.
Many people witnessed that filibuster and have expressed dismay over such occurrence.
But Pimentel is only one of those trying to make a statement; others in the opposition, including those who cannot even make themselves clear, somehow struggle to make themselves heard, and very often they succeed.
The chairs allow them, visibly resigned to their policy of accommodation to all who want to express themselves and be heard.
Time may be running out and they know it.
Above all else, what may be said is that all this will be solved, and speedily, if the 22-man joint committee will transform itself into a reformed body that will "act in a non-partisan, fair, and just manner," to quote former Supreme Court Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, with the nation’s well-being in the hearts and minds of its members.
