Senator for 24 Years

In view of your nomination by the Liberal Party as a candidate for Senator in the election to be held next November, I am constrained to accept your resignation as Solicitor General effective upon the qualification of your successor.

Allow me to take this opportunity to convey to you my profound appreciation of your self-sacrificing and efficient services to the Government as Solicitor General and my hearty congratulations on your nomination as one of the official candidates for Senator of the Liberal Party. I have no doubt that you will be as great an asset to the legislative branch of the Government as you have been to the judicial and executive branches.

The eclat of his career was reached when he romped away with first place in the 1947 senatorial elections. This was but a fitting honor to a man who had worked himself out of obscurity through honest and persevering means. As a senator, he has already distinguished himself as a liberal within the Liberal Party, a champion of the masses, the custodian of the people’s will, and a vigorous exponent of legal and constitutional processes. An authority in Political Law, his election to the Philippine Senate was well earned.

A National Tragedy: There are ruins that bulldozers cannot clear away but that nevertheless lie squarely in the path of any program of true reconstruction, ponderous and tenacious ruins, the ugly ruins of moral concepts and moral standards. The war sowed death and mortal injuries of whose existence we have become aware only because now their stench and stink shock our civic conscience.

How much have we given those whom the war debauched in mind and soul? Who has ever sponsored or contributed to benefits for the relief and rehabilitation of those whose consciences were widowed of charity and orphaned of principle in the moral battles of the Occupation? Yet as I look upon our country today, I cannot escape the conviction that the true tragedy of the Filipino people has been not the loss of our material possessions, our buildings, our churches, our sugar-mills and rice-mills, our plantations, our bridges and homes, but the death-march of so many of our cherished traditions and standards in so many of our men and women. I find the sad spectacle of public servants unashamedly living beyond their visible means, more disturbing than the most pitiful wreck by the wayside. I find the hand extended to receive a bribe more shocking than the mangled limb of a veteran turned beggar. For there is always hope of material reconstruction; there is always a remedy for physical sickness; but moral disease, moral ruin, if not immediately attended to, can be irreparable and incurable sometimes.

In both public and private life, Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada is a modest, not an aggressive man. His sincerity in fighting for the rights of the down-trodden is almost religious and his sense of responsibility towards the people who elected him, tremendous. So tremendous that he would, by the exercise of his sound and mature judgment on national questions, even go against the heads of the political party of which he is member. “My loyalty to my party is only incident to my loyalty to my country,” the Senator declared.

Tanny I assure you I’ll be at the Senate next Monday to lend you moral support although I positively know you do not need it as we La Sallites always remember the motto of our dear Alma Mater — Religio - Mores - Cultura

It became apparent that the progress of the formation of the Citizens Party would be slow and difficult unless a leader of national prominence, embodying in his character and political record the principles of the Party, was chosen to lead it. The answer to this problem came almost immediately when Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada bolted the Liberal Party on 9 June 1949. Senator Tañada’s unimpeachable and incomparable honesty, his immaculate public record and his brilliant work as a fighting Solicitor General made him the only choice for leadership in the new party.

Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada formally launched the Citizens Party yesterday, declaring that “there is room for a new party when none exists to which a true and faithful citizen of this republic can, without losing his self-respect, give his unqualified allegiance and support” and “when the old are equally discredited, equally impotent, equally bankrupt in the resources of faith, honor and principle which alone can sustain the confidence of our people”.

Answering criticisms that there is no room for the Citizens Party, composed of young professionals and businessmen, Tañada said, “In the midst of folly and knavery, there is always room for justice and in the prevalence of incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy and naked greed, there is always reason for the firm and sincere pursuit of honesty, efficiency, self-sacrifice, and the supremacy of the people and the nation over the interests of party, person, and class”.

As Quirino listened to every word that flowed in quick succession from Tañada’s lips, he began to show discomfort. Now he would cup his chin in his hand, then lie back in his chair. Or, he would drink water from his glass while the senator from Quezon province kept hitting at him with sledge hammer blows.

The two and a half hours that President Quirino spent listening to Tañada and Laurel must have been the most irksome hours he ever experienced in his entire political life. Stung by the insinuation that the Buenavista-Tambobong Estates deal was a “family affair”, President Quirino turned to the Citizens Party head who was seated on his right and in a voice quivering with indignation said: “You can have my life if you find anything to prove that I personally profited from the Tambobong deal or any other deal.” Tañada rose and shouted: “I accept! I accept!”.

Here indeed is the bitterest irony of history, that a Rizal should have perished, that a generation of youth shall have fallen on the fields of battle, in order that small and greedy men could do business and enrich themselves in public office. But I have faith, and we all have faith that our republic deserves a better destiny than lying prostrate with immigration quota, surplus deals and all imaginable forms of scandals.

The enclosed quotation from an obscure American poet, J. G. Holland, has been in my mind for a long time and I thought that possibly you might like to have it. You are one statesman that can meet this philosopher’s exacting creed.

To know you has been one of my life’s rarest privileges.

Sen. Lorenzo Tañada debates on the Senate floor against the junket trips of public officials.

We believe in the Ten Commandments. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in social justice. But when millions of pesos worth of surplus are delivered to our government to help in the rehabilitation of our country, who does the stealing and the plundering?

You will say business is like that. But business does not have to be like that, and politics does not have to be what it is. If we believe in the principles that we have been taught, we cannot even in conscience defend political knavery and business fraud.

Your words carry entire nation regardless parties because your unchallenged reputation personal and political integrity moral courage and independence of mind

Any write up about Tañada would be incomplete without a footnote on his close relationship with Recto. “He opened my eyes to nationalism as a means to solve our ills… He said ‘What you are doing, going after graft and corruption is spectacular, but it is a negative attack. What the country needs is a positive approach through nationalism… Inculcate in the people new values, impel them to bring the common good over the private and personal good. Make them put the national interest over the interest of class or party. Get them to sacrifice themselves so that the country may live and prosper.’”

Now there’s a man with a clean slate, both in private and public life… About his record in the government there can only be praise. His steadfast honesty and courage are with him in his every fight. In an admirable way, together with Claro Recto, he is reviving nationalism in our countrymen. I am not waxing eloquent, but I want my sons to grow up to be true Filipinos, proud of their heritage, jealous of their sacred rights. This wave of nationalism comes at a ripe time, when our mentality is colonial, and our resources are in greedy and careless foreign hands. What, tell me, will be left for our children if we let things ride as they are? Presidents have been known to die, inevitably, in office, or after it. May this never happen while Recto graces Malacañang with his intellect and astuteness. Nevertheless, as a precautionary measure—so that the people might not be left shocked and afraid as they were when Quezon and Roxas and Magsaysay died—should they not have a vice-president who will be capable of sitting in the presidential chair and filling it just as satisfactorily?

Look to Tañada’s character: a courageous man, equipped with a mind that, sadly enough, only a few possess; fighter of graft and corruption; an outstanding senator these many years; deeply loyal to the service of his country. Tañada knows his politics, his economics, his principles. He is not the man to be tampered with. What better security can a people have than knowing that such a man is there, ready and able to serve, if need be as president.

Every member of the Senate has a pet measure of his own. To this, he will devote much of his time and energy, in study and evaluation of its merits. And when the time comes for floor discussions, he is adequately prepared to defend it against one and all. His sole aim is to push the measure through approval. Very seldom does he take more than moderate interest in a measure he has not sponsored or co-sponsored for obvious reasons, one which is that the effort may not after all redound to his credit.

There is one exception, however. He is Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada.

One view is that the cause of the evil of graft and corruption in government is not political but socio-economic. Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada, for instance, believes that graft and corruption is the consequence of lack of nationalism. Tañada describes graft and corruption as “institutional diseases brought about by the colonial past and the continuing aspects of the country’s life today.”

Tañada adds that the existence of graft and corruption “is rooted in alien dominance of our entire national life, and from this alien hegemony, Rizal and other leaders of the nationalist revolution of 1896 had sought to liberate us”.

Sen. Lorenzo Tañada, flashing the form that carried him through the arduous 1959 campaign, captured the University of the Philippines College of Law walkathon contest Saturday. The walkathon, a 10-kilometer grind from the España rotonda to the UP administration building in Diliman, is participated in by an impressive array of UP law alumni in connection with the UP College of Law Golden Jubilee Celebration. Tañada covered the distance in one hour and 33 minutes. Coming in three minutes later was Senator Arturo Tolentino. Ex-Judge Antonio Quirino finished third.

Free enterprise would mean the abandonment of the whole program of “Filipino First”—and this is precisely one reason why foreign economic interests here are all crying for it. Without continued government support and active intervention in behalf of Filipino industry, foreign interests could easily destroy and gobble it up.

Free enterprise too would mean the end of our dreams of establishing the basic requirements of industry here…. This would leave the field open for foreign financiers and entrepreneurs—and eventually the only role left for Filipino capitalists and industrialists would be as junior—very junior—partners in the so-called ‘joint ventures’.

The present alien-owned banks except in hereditary succession, can sell or transfer their shares of stocks only to Filipinos. Actually, this is the same bill on which Congress withheld action during its last regular session because of its controversial nature. Tañada reintroduced it because, he explained, Filipinos should have control of the banking institutions because “they are the life-blood of our economy”.

Now thanks to a bill filed in the Senate by Lorenzo M. Tañada, eavesdropping—especially the electronic type—will be punishable with a jail term from six months to four years unless the eavesdropper can show a court order or a permission from the office of the Solicitor General… No one who believes that “the acid test of successful democratic government is the degree of effective liberty it makes available to the individual” can have anything but praise for the latest Tañada bill.

Tañada probably presented the biggest number of bills in the Senate. Among them were acts: Prohibiting and penalizing wiretapping; limiting to Filipinos shares of stock in banking institutions (existing rights respected); penalizing hoarding or manipulation of supplies of essential commodities; increasing the compensation of justices of the Supreme Court ; restricting and regulating advertising devices adjacent to national highways; providing for acquisition of Filipino citizenship by naturalization, repealing old laws; amending the Banking Act respecting receipt of deposits; amending the Civil Code respecting liability of motor vehicle owners; providing for compulsory vehicle liability insurance; amending the Administrative Code regarding suspension or removal of elective provincial officials by the president; safeguarding the independence of the judiciary.

Although the land reform bill is littered with imperfections and provisions of doubtful constitutionality, Senators Tañada and Tolentino, leading critics of the original bill, let it pass “to give the bold, ambitious, and arbitrary scheme of Mr. Macapagal a good try.”

Senator Tañada compiled cloth-bound copies of the seven evolutionary stages of the bill “to provide my children reference material when history records the dismal failure of this ill-conceived scheme of the New Era”.

Dear Fellow Citizen,

As my term in office is about to close, I owe it to you, as a leading member of the community, to make a brief report of my actuations in the Senate.

If we would make meaningful individuals out of the youth who are entrusted to us, it is incumbent in us to gear education ultimately to the service of the country. This can mean only one thing in the Philippines—to be worthy and worthwhile, education must be nationalist-oriented. We are here to turn out not just competent lawyers, imaginative businessmen, skillful doctors and nurses but FILIPINO ones, professionals who are acutely conscious of their duties to their country and people.

The nose that started sniffing belongs to MAN—Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism—of which Senator Tañada is the chairman. Apparently, the MAN committee on economic affairs had been dissecting the Virata-Braderman report and it concluded that Paragraph 26 of the report was a commitment to grant “national treatment” to Americans after 1974. Giving a foreigner “national treatment” means giving him the same advantages as a native citizen and violates the more standard “most-favored nation” policy according to which a host nation must give equal treatment to all foreign nationals.

If we look at contracts like mature men, without being fooled by those fairy tales they tell us, we will see that there is a patent violation of the law. This is the price we pay for foreign investments—our dignity… Indeed, man does not live on bread alone.

It is not true that you are a political “loner” because the people have been with you in all your crusades and have supported you with their overwhelming vote in all elections in which you sought popular sanction. You may have been alone in upholding your convictions but behind you were concerned citizens who believe in you, in your impeccable integrity, in your patriotism.

In his time as a senator, he stood out as a member of a rare tribe of men that placed country above self, duty above ambition… During his 24-year term in the Senate, Tañada stood out among giants, and proved himself a winner among champions.

Without meaning to prick the conscience of the political overstayers, former Sen. Tañada bid his fellows goodbye in this manner:

“I have decided to retire because I feel that I have stayed long enough on the scene. Twenty four years in the Senate was more than enough for me to have done what was in my power to do for the people as a senator. There is surely some deserving young or younger man waiting in the wings for his turn. I have had mine, It is time to go.”

If the memory of Tañada’s sojourn in the Senate will linger, this is because of his unselfishness, a virtue many politicians have never heard of.