Point of Order

Noly Balatero — June 3, 2026

Point of Order

It is time to call to task our legislators to buckle down to brass tacks and do what their mandate is crystal clear. Enough of converting sessions into a forum on issues serving none other their precious selves. 


Enough of converting the Senate into a marketplace from where the power of the Podium is exercised in complete disregard of the very rules long revered and respected. 


It’s too bad that for three weeks running, invaluable time has been used to coddle up runaway colleagues, to obfuscate issues of national significance, and to foment new-fangled schemes to provide protection for comrades running away from the law. 


Week by week, we have been herded into discomfort zones, made to think that a new kind of justice is worth creating for those wanted by law and justice, propagating the notion that colleagues are entitled to protective custody without legal support and basis. 


For 3 weeks running, no legislation has been included in the session agenda, totally bereft of issues that have something to do with the purpose of lawmaking. 


What has been used is invaluable time to deliberate on how else can absentee colleagues can participate, despite some pre-requirements already embodied in the very rules that guide and direct how discussions can be managed without having to veer away from what are expected of very matured lawmakers. 


It is time to make known, by assertion of our constitutional rights, to demand nothing lofty or pedestrian. Make them realize that we deserve a Senate session to foster professional scrutiny of nothing less but propositions deemed to benefit, not a single individual, but the entire populace. 


Bring back to us a Senate worthy of its institutional honor so painstakingly built during a respectable time when voices of eminence and esteem were ringing through its august hall. 


May the session days in the last three weeks be converted into a parliament of ideas and concepts that matter most. Nothing less will redeem the institution from ghastly political posturing and cheap pontifications that mean nothing to the national ills afflicting our people.

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