“The Many Talents of Chiz Escudero” offers a critical perspective on the senator’s political behavior. This VERA Files article by social anthropologist, writer, and university professor Antonio Montalvan II highlights Escudero’s tendency to manipulate legal interpretations, such as redefining constitutional terms to suit his arguments. The June 3 piece also accuses Escudero of delivering vague, self-serving rhetoric and deceitfully aligning with prevailing political sentiments to maintain relevance.

I second the motion.

Even if the cheese is sour, the rat may still find it delicious. But that is if Filipinos are that kind of animal. Many still believe that we can be considered carabaos and cows of struggle and eagles of soaring high in the dreams desired for the country and the next generation. The people are not always fooled by Escudero’s tricks. They have limits.

Montalvan adds: “He does not play to the public’s anger that Sara Duterte must be convicted. He thinks that the public can be pooh-poohed.

“He might just learn his lesson in a bitter way. Kill the Senate impeachment trial and see if the people will be docile to (Escudero) and his conspirators.”

What did people like Escudero think of to cover up for his ally, VP Sara Duterte? Is he also an ally of President Marcos Jr.? How can you say “cheese” on cam? Try uttering “balimbing” instead, and you’ll see the difference between ngiti and ngisi. “Integrity is not one of (Escudero’s) talents,” Montalvan says, also reckoning that people can make this traditional politician know “there is a price to it.”

Let us listen now to law expert and dean Mel Sta. Maria: “As a matter of law and practicality, non-termination (by June 30) must be the case because if a body is acting judicially or quasi-judicially, once jurisdiction attaches to that body, like the Senate, it cannot be divested of its jurisdiction by a mere change in the judges.

“Accordingly, from the legal standpoint and from a practical perspective, no ‘functional dismissal’ can occur in a Senate Impeachment Trial. The law should not be interpreted in an impractical manner, by a construction that will lead to waste of time and public money.”

Meanwhile, almost a hundred members of the UP College of Law Faculty urge the Senate to “forthwith proceed” with the impeachment trial of Duterte, to let the truth unfold.” They recall:

“In the Estrada impeachment, the non-opening of the second envelope was premised on evidentiary objections regarding relevance and materiality; for the people, it was suppression of the truth that ended in the removal of a President. In the Corona impeachment, the Chief Justice delivered an emphatic statement defending himself; the tide turned when he abruptly walked out of the impeachment trial before the Senate could ask him questions. While every initiation of impeachment is understandably controversial if not divisive, the people eventually congregate around the Impeachment Court to find ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’ about serious disqualifying allegations against its highest public servants.”

Incongruously, Escudero is their alumnus and once taught there. What an intensity of the linguistic scandal that the Senate leader wanted to get into with that word “forthwith!” Has “agad-agad in Filipino been difficult for the Senate leader to grasp since January? He makes mistakes in front of academics and of the more enthusiastic Gen Z and Millennial voters. They may lean on to his feisty colleague Risa Hontiveros’ promise: “The impeachment process is a crucial means of demanding accountability exclusively entrusted by the people to the Senate. Hindi ko ‘yan balak talikuran. It’s time to follow the rules and start the process forthwith.’ Enough games. Time to move.”

How do we unpack this kind of cheese? The poor rats are coming, but we are the carabaos, cows, and eagles in this struggle. We maintain to have better taste. We are disappointed (read: nangangasim) with Chiz’s service.

Ethics and Other General Education Subjects

We have ethics, art appreciation, The Contemporary World, and other general education (GE) core courses in Philippine higher education institutions so that HEI graduates do not become robots and obedient even when something goes wrong. Officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) have begun deliberating the potential removal or transfer of the three mentioned GE subjects.

Secretary Sonny Angara is silent on this, but other DepEd officials believe these can be taught in the senior high curriculum under Social Studies, GMRC, and Arts. Some CHED officials—their new Chair is silent too—are exploring ways to streamline the tertiary curriculum and do some merging of courses to avoid redundancies.

Is that it? We are to care less about repetitions (https://tutubi.ph/finding-comfort-in-uncertainty-accepting-life-and-coming-alive/). Retention and understanding are obtained from learning. If senior high graduates have no meaningful retention or ability to apply what they “learn”—normative and applied ethics included—we have a problem based on educational psychology.

We get it when it is a case of excessive redundancy, as it negatively impacts learning by overloading working memory. That is the unintended consequence.

We’d better reframe ethics as essential, not add-on. We need to change that perspective because the truth is that ethics is part of being human, living together, choosing leaders, and electing the better, more highly qualified ones. Discussions of ethical considerations using highly concentrated concepts like deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics will be put to waste as they are merely added to values education and GMRC.

On the teaching part, we need to avoid the lack of real-world application. Even using scenarios and ethical dilemmas, if they are not related to the realities of the youth, like social media ethics, cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty, family conflict, and the utter failure of leaders to be role models, they only seem hypothetical and not useful to HEI students. How much more to the younger high schoolers?

As we focus on improving our standing in PISA assessments relative to science, math, and reading comprehension at our Basic Ed, we need to retain ethics and other GE core courses in HIGHer Ed where students are older and more mature than HIGH schoolers. We’ll tackle this as soon as major developments occur as a result of subsequent DepEd/CHED/EDCOM II meetings finalizing their proposal.