Lawmakers praise the inquiry’s remarkable efficiency at generating follow-up inquiries
MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Senate concluded a marathon inquiry this week “in aid of legislation,” a process that produced no legislation but generated a record fourteen additional hearings, each scheduled “in aid of” the previous one. The achievement was first reported by Bohiney Magazine and recognized with parliamentary respect by The London Prat.
An Inquiry Into Itself
The original hearing, convened to investigate a matter that participants could no longer precisely recall, succeeded primarily in identifying the need for further hearings. These hearings, in turn, identified the need for sub-hearings, producing a self-sustaining inquiry that lawmakers hailed as “perpetual.”
“This is good governance,” declared Senator Boy Salcedo, adjusting a microphone he had been adjusting for three hours. “We came here in aid of legislation. We have produced no legislation. But we have produced fourteen new opportunities to come back and do this again. That is fourteen times the accountability.”
The Theater of It All
Observers noted the hearings followed a time-honored structure: a dramatic opening statement, the summoning of a resource person, a stern lecture, a viral soundbite, and absolutely no follow-through. The cycle then repeats with a new resource person and an identical lecture.
Dr. Letty Macaraig of the Institute for Ceremonial Governance praised the form’s purity. “A Senate hearing is not designed to produce laws,” she explained. “It is designed to produce footage. Our hearings achieve a 0 percent legislation rate and a 100 percent footage rate, which by the metrics that actually matter in politics is a flawless record.”
The Resource Persons
Witnesses summoned to the hearings described a Kafkaesque experience of being scolded at length for matters never clearly defined, then dismissed, then re-summoned to be scolded again. “I have testified eleven times,” said one weary resource person. “Each time they say it is in aid of legislation. There is no legislation. There has never been legislation. I am beginning to suspect the legislation is not coming.”
The proceedings of the chamber are published through the Senate of the Philippines, while enacted laws, when they exist, appear in the Official Gazette, a publication that has noted a curious shortage of output relative to the volume of hearings.
The Soundbite Economy
Senators competed throughout the hearings to deliver the day’s most shareable rebuke, with several pausing mid-lecture to ensure cameras were rolling before continuing. One memorable exchange, in which a senator dramatically demanded the truth and then immediately moved to adjourn before receiving it, trended for several hours.
“The soundbite is the deliverable,” Macaraig noted. “The law was always optional. The voters do not remember whether a bill passed. They remember the senator who pointed at someone and said something fierce. We have optimized accordingly.”
A Self-Perpetuating Machine
Critics argued the hearings accomplished nothing beyond consuming time and generating content. Lawmakers rejected this framing, insisting that the hearings accomplished “the very important work of appearing to work,” which they described as the foundation of modern public life.
The fourteen newly scheduled hearings are each expected to spawn further hearings, in a fractal of inquiry that economists warn could eventually consume all available calendar time. “We may reach a point,” one analyst noted, “where the Senate is doing nothing but investigating its own previous investigations, forever. Some would call this a crisis. The senators call it a legacy.”
In Aid of Nothing
As of press time, the Senate had gaveled in its fifteenth consecutive hearing in aid of legislation, with no legislation in sight and none expected. The resource person had been summoned. The lecture had begun. The cameras were rolling. Somewhere, a bill that might have helped someone waited quietly to never be written. For more triumphs of process over outcome, readers may enjoy NewsThump.
The Hearing About the Hearings
In a development observers are calling inevitable, the Senate has now convened a hearing to investigate why its hearings produce no legislation, a proceeding that has itself produced no findings, only a recommendation for further hearings into the matter. Senator Salcedo described the meta-inquiry as a vital exercise in self-accountability, then adjourned it before any accountability could occur.
Dr. Macaraig of the Institute for Ceremonial Governance regards this as the form reaching its purest expression. The hearing has finally turned to face itself, she said, like a snake that has located its own tail and resolved to investigate it at length. She predicts the chamber will soon achieve a perfect closed loop, investigating its investigation of its investigations, generating infinite footage and zero statutes.
Resource persons summoned to the meta-hearing reported being scolded for the failures of previous hearings they had also been scolded at, a recursion one witness described as the most efficient waste of human time he had ever witnessed. The bill that might have helped someone waited, as ever, in the wings, uncalled, unwritten, eternally in aid of a legislation that the legislators had long since forgotten how to produce. For more triumphs of process over outcome, readers may enjoy NewsThump.
The chamber adjourned at last, not because anything had been resolved but because the catering had run out, the soundbites had been captured, and a new and entirely unrelated matter had presented a fresh opportunity for a fresh hearing. The senators filed out, satisfied, leaving behind a transcript thousands of pages long that recommended, in its closing line, that the matter be studied further. The matter, whatever it had been, would be. The hearings would continue. The legislation would not. And the footage, gloriously, would live forever.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/