CHICKENPIE.The Senate floor. Nobody's debating a budget. Nobody's debating a bill. Everyone's debating a boy group's entrance cue in Chicago.
Senator Kiko Pangilinan just filed a resolution commending SB19 for their Lollapalooza set. This is the second one. Senator Bam Aquino filed the first back in July. Two senators, two separate resolutions, one concert. At this rate the entire chamber is going to work its way through the whole group individually — a resolution per member, alphabetical, with footnotes.
Here's the part nobody's saying out loud: this isn't really about SB19. It's about how cheap praise has become the easiest bill to pass. A resolution commending a P-pop group costs nothing, offends no one, and photographs beautifully. Try getting that kind of unanimous, frictionless yes on flood control funding. Try getting it on the wage hike currently frozen in a Pasig courtroom. The concert compliment sails through in a week. The wage hike needs a P10-billion bond and a miracle.
We love this for SB19, genuinely. Lollapalooza is a real flex. But somewhere between the first resolution and the second, the Senate discovered a genre of legislation with zero opposition, zero cost, and maximum shareability — and once a legislature finds that lever, it does not let go. Next month: a resolution congratulating a jeepney driver for going viral. The month after: a resolution thanking a barangay dog for being a good boy. We are not being cynical. We are reading the trend line.
Somewhere in that same building, an actual budget hearing is still stuck on page four.
Mr. Chicken watches from the visitor's gallery, dwarfed by the chamber, a tiny witness in a sea of red upholstery and gavel sound, while two senators shake hands under a spotlight that should be pointed at a spreadsheet.
The résumé of the 20th Congress, so far: one wage hike frozen, one flood-control scandal unresolved, and two — soon three — resolutions confirming that yes, the boy group did great in Chicago.
Outrage would be the easy reaction. But outrage is not the product anymore. Bookkeeping is. Somebody should file a resolution commending whoever eventually tracks how many of these get filed before the term ends.
