The Rookie
by Georgia
Being a senator is not easy, so rookie senator Kiko
Pangilinan has learned. Only his second day as a senator, it was
a little bit too obvious that he does need some time to adjust to the
life in the session hall. Unlike more experienced senators, he stayed
glued to his seat and listening intently to whoever was on the stand.
He chatted quietly with his seatmate Ralph Recto, and avoided being
conspicuous.
“Well, like any other newcomer into politics and the legislative
process (the last time I was in a legislative assembly was 10 years
ago), you have cobwebs in your mind and butterflies in your stomach,
but I have to learn quick,” he tells us, “it has been a long
time, and I’ve been listening, observing, and learning how others
conduct themselves.”
Does he think that being from the more popular coalition (PPC) helped
him greatly to get him where he is now?
“We don’t really have a very strong political party system
as compared to the States and Europe. The voters themselves are not
as issue-oriented as we would like them to be. Because of several factors
like poverty, ignorance, lack of education, these have retarded our
political parties.”
He is hopeful however that soon, parties and issues will matter. What
our country needs is “a more mature and, well, more organized political
party system in our country, but we’re getting there, we’re
moving towards that.”
Being a very young addition to the Senate, Kiko Pangilinan is refreshingly
naive and optimistic. He says that “hopefully, the learning curve
will be short because we have to have quality sooner better than later.”
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