According to Sen. Joker Arroyo, former senators Vicente Sotto III and Teresa Aquino-Oreta and fellow re-electionist Ralph Recto may be against the shift to a parliamentary form of government Cha-Cha but still joined the Arroyo administration slate since they can, at least, tolerate each other’s principles.

Of course, that raises the question of what the chances are of someone winning a Senate seat when he is open to have it extinguished. Can one really say, in effect, "Vote for me and I will see to it that your vote gets wasted by agreeing to abolish the Senate…"?

It is tragic how some of the brightest minds that we have can callously look down on the intelligence of the rest of us. But then, that’s traditional politics for you.

It seemed just like yesterday that the maverick senator for the Bicol region was magnificently lambasting the administration moves to render him prematurely jobless. The same goes for Recto, who won a six-year term in 2001 by the seat of his pants. And the memories of Sotto and Oreta campaigning tooth-and-nail for Fernando Poe Jr. are still fresh in our minds.

And yet all four are on the other side of the fence with a political overlord whom they had branded as either a cheat or an enemy of democracy. Maybe that is why the political rally of independent candidate and former Senator Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan in Davao City drew as big a crowd as any compared to that of the administration, reportedly propped up by "hakots".

Honasan’s support remains since voters perceive him to still be anti-administration despite not being included in the opposition senatorial slate.

In fairness to the four hopefuls, however, their teammates are spouting inconsistencies at a fairly equal rate. Notable among them is Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay, who says that the "Hello Garci" scandal was just a "lapse" and not a serious offense at all. Pichay goes on to say, "This only shows the ignorance of the opposition. These coming elections are for both Houses of Congress which pertain to matters of legislation, unless (the opposition members) want to project that the Senate is not independent of the executive branch," Pichay said.

Not independent of the executive branch? In all honesty, how can Pichay really stand for an independent Senate when he is getting his hands raised by the architect of its attempted assassination? I do not recall hearing the main power center of Malacañang having thrown in the towel over shifting to a parliamentary form of government.

The coming political exercise, being a mid-term election, may not be as exciting as a the presidential election. But it is certainly no less important. Why else would Arroyo be so keen on picking up the rejects and discards of the opposition camp and co-opt them into critically collaborating with her regime? Is there really a shortage of deserving and winnable senatorial candidates from within the administration camp?

Most importantly, is critical collaboration really possible with this administration? Is it possible to sleep with the dragon and not wake up a burn victim? I think not. More likely, all this alleged willingness to bite the hand that feeds them is merely telling the voters what they want to hear in the name of shameless self-preservation.