Flux

The center cannot hold. Over the weekend, Senator Panfilo Lacson announced he was quitting as head of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

- ALEX MAGNO

In the days preceding, he found himself at the center of controversy over how the corruption hearings were going.

In the last hearing, we were treated to explosive testimony from a former Marine who served as security detail for Zaldy Co. He described how tens of millions in cash stashed in suitcases were delivered to the former congressman and to the homes of former speaker Martin Romualdez.

This was followed by a massive effort to douse that testimony mainly on the technicality of faulty notarization. But that was testimony made in person, under oath and on the Senate floor. And the story linked all the other parts of the building narrative that plunder was undertaken with the connivance of the most powerful politicians.

Lacson was constrained to announce that Romualdez and Co, the emerging Batman and Robin in this story of massive corruption, were to be summoned to the hearing. The next thing we heard was that the Senate hearings will be suspended indefinitely supposedly to give way to budget deliberations.

That was like a stick of dynamite with a lighted fuse was submerged in water - enough to douse the fire and avert an explosion. For every action, there was an equal reaction: powerful forces were in motion to kill an explosive story.

After this episode, Lacson shifted the conversation rather abruptly. He began talking about budget insertions made by the senators. That, in turn, prompted an unexpected reaction: five senators threatened to quit the majority bloc. That threat might blow up the precarious Senate presidency of Tito Sotto.