A friend called Dick

Ruffy Magbanua

SANS politics, this Red Cross action man and battle-tested politician for the longest time called Dick deserves a space in this column.

Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon has been beating great odds at the Senate plenary hall lately as chair of the Blue Ribbon Committee specifically with an assuming leader of failed putsch, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.

Their latest tirades prompted the Olongapo senator to file an ethics complaint against the Bicol senator  following a heated exchange during the hearing of the P6.4-billion shabu shipment smuggled into the country from China.

But as usual, the minority bloc led by Sen. Franklin Drilon urged their colleagues in the majority bloc to rethink their position about the threat to file ethics complaint against Trillanes.

This Senate zarzuela is not at all new.  In fact, it happened in the past, and it may happen over and over again.

This is democracy in action, but the latest imbroglio reflects how a nutty senator could downgrade the integrity of the Senate into a mere legislative cockpit of insanity.

With his usual hypocritical stance,  Sen. Trillanes, a vocal critic of the Duterte administration, has questioned why presidential son Davao Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and presidential son-in-law Mans Carpio were not summoned to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing despite “loaded” testimonies done by Bureau of Customs fixer Mark Taguba.

Taguba linked the two members of President Duterte’s family to the so-called Davao Group, which allegedly had been asking brokers for bribes to hasten the release of shipments from the Bureau of Customs.

But for whatever reason, Taguba quickly retracted his earlier statements linking the younger Duterte and his brother-in-law of any involvement in the drug business inside the customs bureau.

With frequent warnings from his wife not to go emotional during Senate hearings, Gordon has to hold his temper to the max otherwise he will go nuts against the much younger Trillanes whom he declared “out of order.”

His eloquence and no-nonsense stand on important issues as committee chair may be the ire of Trillanes but to Gordon,  it’s all about doing his Senate job as chair of the powerful blue ribbon committee.

Known to be brutally frank and demanding, Gordon has advocated rules and policies that were somehow unpopular yet effective.

For the record, Gordon authored major laws, a number of which aimed to dramatically transform the political and economic landscape of the country.

He is the father of the Automated Election Law, the Tourism Act, and the creation of economic zones such as the Poro Point Freeport in La Union, the freeport area of Bataan in Mariveles, and Camp John Hay in Baguio, all to jumpstart investment and development.

Gordon is also responsible for the passage of Veterans Benefits, the Free Patent Law and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Law.

As chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee, he investigated the 2004 P728-million Fertilizer Fund Scam and the assailed ZTE National Broadband Contract, demanding accountability.

With Sen. Gordon at the helm, the Philippine Red Cross is there to provide various forms of assistance during disasters.

Now considered as one of the strongest Red Cross societies in the world, the Philippine Red Cross has earned global spot  with Gordon’s   election to the governing board of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Carry on, Dick!

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com