By: Telly Gonzaga-Ocampo
Is the Tower of Babylon Crumbling?
The Senate as a modern Tower of Babylon. On Day 1, the threshold was clear at 16. By Day 21, the language had changed.
Long before I learned about impeachment in school, I learned about the Tower of Babylon from my Lola Danday.
It was before our catechism class. After the oracion we would sit together because that was the only time we had light. Electric power in our place was only from 6 to 6, and the radio was our community, our rosary, and our classroom.
That story of Lola Danday stayed with me:it was a story about men who built a tower to reach heaven because they wanted to be powerful like God. Halfway up, they stopped understanding each other. They spoke in different languages. And the tower crumbled.
I thought of Lola again this week.
With electricity bills rising, I try not to switch on the television. But from Monday to Wednesday, I cannot help it. Pungot or not, we have to see how the senator-judges are behaving. I have watched them all, from Erap, to Gloria, to Corona, and now to Sarah. There was even the attempt to impeach Chief Justice Davide that did not succeed. But this one feels different. Longer. Heavier. The question that sits in the living room is not legal anymore. It is human: Mahuman ba kaha? What is crystal clear is what Lola warned us about. When power becomes the pinnacle, personal interest replaces common language.
In the middle of all the noise, two old voices made me listen closely.
Before television, before 24-hour electricity, there was the radio and Lola Danday’s stories. For many families in Bohol, power from 6 to 6 meant stories were shared in the dark, and lessons lasted a lifetime.
The first is former Chief Justice Renato Puno. In his old age, the sharpness and astuteness of mind remains. He is justice par excellence. His eloquence, superb. His thesis said it all. You did not need to agree with every line to feel its weight. It was a reminder that the law has memory, and that memory is longer than any political term.
Then there was former Associate Justice Adolph Azcuna. He may have had the shortest speech. He has lost the eloquence of youth, but he stood firm on what matters more: intent.
As a framer of the 1987 Constitution, he reminded us what that provision meant. It should be 2/3 of the entire membership of the Senate, which is 24. The number 16 is not vulnerable to any manipulation. And it matters because at the very start of this trial, as stated by presiding Senator-Judge Escudero, the threshold was clear at 16. So we must ask, how come the question of threshold only surfaced after the 21st day of trial?
How long will we have to wait?
Nadutlan kaha ang mga senador? Ug ang mga tawo?
That is the question Lola Danday would ask. The story of Babel was not about a badly built tower. It was about builders who forgot why they were building. Halfway up, wala na magkasinabot. Each spoke his own language of ambition. And what they built with so much effort, crumbled on its own.
The Senate today is our tower. The Constitution gave it a height and a purpose. But if those inside it can no longer understand the same language of accountability, of 16 as 16, not 15 or 18 when convenient, what will keep it standing?
I turn off the TV after the session to save power. The house goes quiet again, like during the time of oracion. And in that quiet, I hear Lola’s story ending the same way: the tower does not fall because God pushes it. It falls because the builders let go of one another.
“Halfway, wala na magkasinabot.” When the builders no longer speak the same language of accountability, even the strongest tower crumble.