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Last Monday, Rep. Walden Bello of Akbayan Party delivered a scathing speech condemning former President GMA for high corruption. He said that corruption was the signature of the Arroyo government. He condemned the allies and cohorts of the previous government, whose acts he called porcine. He said that GMA should be brought to the National Penitentiary, and that she doesn’t deserve to be in Congress. (Download the speech here)

The speech was delivered shortly after former President GMA had her oath-taking before the members of Congress as the representative of the 4th district of Pampanga.

In the House of Gloria, what Walden did cannot be tolerated. Walden was interrupted several times during his speech, with one veteran representative saying that it was taking too long. Another representative – remember him, his name is Rep. Marcoleta of Alagad – complained that Walden, a professor and a public intellectual, was tackling too many issues, and it was too much for his brain to handle.

Despite these attempts, Walden was able to finish his speech, all thirteen pages of it. He cited cases of graft and corruption involving the former President. He mentioned how GMA tried to thwart key social reform programs – the agrarian reform extension law and the reproductive health bill, among others. But, the professor that he is, he wasn’t short of solutions. He actually proposed policies and programs that the new Aquino should adopt to restructure the economy and prioritize social programs.

But in the House of Gloria, Walden’s speech was unparliamentary. They said that he violated the rules of Congress. They were deeply offended. When Walden accused GMA’s allies of behaving like pigs and of finding in GMa a model for corruption, an enraged  congresswoman who felt alluded to angrily said, “kami yun, ah!”.

The rules state that you cannot criticize a fellow member of Congress, and for GMA and her allies, that is enough to protect their Queen. She should be accorded proper respect, they said, and they moved to have the parts of the speech referring to GMA stricken off the record.

The House leadership intervened and suggested to modify the speech. “Corruption was the signature of the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo” would be changed to “Corruption is the signature of the previous administration from 2001-2010″. They wanted to remove some offensive words, those that could fill up a menagerie, or a crocodile farm.

It was reminiscent of how the previous administration used semantics to cover its draconian measures. Opposition figures weren’t arrested or detained but were  only given ‘protective custody’ by the police. When GMA said ‘I’m sorry’ in 2005, it was to apologize for calling an election official BUT it should not be construed as an admission it was her voice caught in the controversial ‘Hello Garci recordings’. She prohibited her cabinet officials from speaking about anomalous deals, calling the gag an exercise of “executive privilege”.

Walden and Akbayan’s other representative, Kaka Bag-ao, listened and negotiated with the House leadership in good faith. But after several suspensions of the plenary debates, the presiding officer suddenly to remove in their entirety sentences and paragraphs that criticize the former president. After the ruling, which Rep. Bello was about to contest, Rep. Cagas of Davao even threatened to slap the Akbayan representative with an ethics complaint.

Because in the House of Gloria, her name cannot be mentioned. Certainly not in a bad light. Under her term, no Filipino got hungry. No President called an election official to pad the results with one million votes in her favor. No anomalies took place in the last nine years, our roads are paved with gold, and Mikey Arroyo has the heart of an impoverished manong guard.

The House leadership succeeded in deleting Walden’s scathing criticisms of the Arroyo administration. Walden got mad, and stormed to his seat. The presiding officer and the so-called minority said that decorum must be maintained in the House. Never mind if the object of Walden’s criticism is a former President who abused her presidential powers to mobilize the military to campaign for her. Never mind if the same person usurped the resources of her office, the highest in the land, to deliver  multi-million projects in her district in Pampanga in order to secure her a seat in Congress. It doesn’t matter, too, if the same woman is the reason why there are tons of rotting rice in government warehouses, or why hundreds of activists and journalists have been killed.

Never mind if the representatives who allowed who censored Walden’s speech are the same representatives who blocked the impeachment complaint against GMA and have now found it convenient to swear loyalty to the  new majority.

This is the House that Gloria built, where what passes for decorum is what we common folks call honor among thieves.