The present Senator Madrigal is Consuelo (Jamby) Madrigal. She is the niece of Pacita and the daughter of Jose, the fifth child of Vicente.

A family profile talks of the Madrigal men: "They like to emulate the many traits of the old school that their father had exhibited. Among the more poignant ones was . . . to never utter bad word about anyone. To always provide assistance to friends whenever needed. They want to maintain the tremendous respect and admiration garnered by their father from all his colleagues. Just like his father, they also would like to be known in the business circles as men of great principles, whose advice were sought by business and political leaders alike. To have sharp business acumen that is tempered by a conservative approach. And to remain as simple and generous men who will share so much of themselves to their families."

Thus, one has to wonder why the present Senator Madrigal comes across like an aberration of her family’s values. Only yesterday, she hit out at fellow Senator Pia Cayetano with uncalled for (and decidedly unsenatorial) catty remarks about Senator Pia’s penchant for riding racing bicycles. In an earlier incident, her unsenatorial cattiness showed when she asked witness J. Lo whether he considered himself as intimate an acquaintance of Secretary Romulo Neri as two other male names that Senator Jamby mentioned.

Someone who likes to keep score says that Senator Jamby has struck out with her third consecutive strike in the last week.

She started off by accusing the Chinese embassy of sending a copy of their official letter to the Philippine government to one "FG," which Jamby concluded meant "First Gentleman," the President’s husband, As it turns out, of course, as everyone now knows, the letter "I" after "FG" had mysteriously disappeared from the copy that Jamby exhibited, as the original endorsement was for "FGI/PIS" referring to Florante G. Igtiben, chief of the Asia Pacific Division of the Public Investment Staff (PIS) that handles projects funded by China.

Instead of accepting the fact that she had made a mistake, Madrigal even berated Chinese Embassy officials who had taken exception to the senator’s statement about the First Gentleman’s alleged involvement in the deal and insisted that she was just doing her job as a senator of the land.

The real "FG" has now sued her for what the FG believes was a willful and malicious Madrigal-generated fraud that Senator Madrigal tried to pull off – at his expense.

***

Then, she took issue with the management of the Philippine National Railways (PNR) on the South Rail project. In a published statement, Madrigal claimed that in reply to her letter asking the PNR to produce a copy of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the railway company and the China National Technical Import-Export Corporation (CINTIC) dated April 27, 2005, PNR general manager Jose Ma. Sarasola II wrote back that the document was either lost or could not be located. "They are either very mad or very bad," fumed Senator Jamby.

GM Sarasola coolly reacted by pointing out that nowhere in his letter to Jamby did he say that the MOA was lost or indicate that he was "covering up", as the senator claimed.

"If she will bother to read again my letter to her of February 20, she will realize that my statement is that we do not have a copy of the MOA she refers to or any other document which may be related to it dated April 27, 2005," Sarasola said.

Apparently, what the PNR has is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the PNR and CINTIC and the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) dated November 15, 2002. Senator Madrigal may, of course, not know that there are any differences between a MOU and a MOA; it is also possible that she may not even know that there is a difference between the months of April and November.

I mean, someone who would criticize Senator Pia for riding her racer bike to raise awareness on health issues has to be someone of scant understanding of things outside her immediate world,

PNR GM Sarasola explained to the press: "We do not have a copy of the MOA that Sen. Madrigal is talking about. As far as we are concerned, such a document does not exist. So how is it possible for me to have lost or to be covering up for a non-existent document?"

***

Jamby’s third and final strikeout came when she recently claimed that the X-ray scanning machines of the Bureau of Customs were overpriced. She then asked for an investigation into the deal, comparing it to the controversial NBN-ZTE project. After all, both the broadband and the X-ray machines came from China!

She demanded to know why the Chinese Nuctech machines bought by the Philippines cost more than the Nuctech machines being used by the Los Angeles Customs in California. She had read a news account on the California machines and presumed without further research that she was an expert on them. Thus, she went out on another limb.

Madrigal’s claims were answered by lawyer Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang, head of the Customs X-Ray Scanning Project. Ms. Mangaoang pointed out that the Philippine X-ray machines were procured under the BOC’s Non-Intrusive Container Inspection System Project (NCISP) which aimed at a speedy, more reliable inspection and examination of all cargoes to facilitate trade and prevent tariff evasion due to misdeclaration of highly dutiable goods such as luxury cars. This would also intensify checks against anti-social items like weapons and drugs.

Funding for the NCISP project came from a concessional loan pursuant to a government-to-government counter-trade financing agreement between the Philippines and China.

The loan was without equity at the annual interest rate is 2% on diminishing balance, and maturity period of 20 years, with a 5-year grace period.

Senator Jamby charged that there was an influential person who brokered the project even when the Philippine government dealt directly with the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China.

Madrigal also asked why the Nuctech machine in Los Angeles, California cost less than those bought by the BOC.

Ms. Mangaoang pointed out that the machines used in Los Angeles and those in the Philippines were vastly different models: "The Nuctech model in L.A. is LH while ours is a more modern model, the LT. The penetration level of our units is much stronger than the model in L.A.

"For another, we were already able to get a 50% discount on the unit price. When we increased the order from 10 to 30 units, we were able to have the supplier bring down the cost even more."

Why did the BOC need so many when Los Angels port only needed one?

Of course, the logical explanation has to be that L.A. is only a single port with a short coastline. "The BOC has to cover our 7,100 islands and 15 ports, aside from the fact that we have one of the longest coastlines in the world," explains Ms. Mangaoang,

"We don’t know where the senator is coming from. If she and her staff had done due diligence on this project, she would have seen this as beneficial to our country and not in the negative way she has announced it to the public."

***

Because of these three consecutive strikes, one wonders whether Senator Jamby Madrigal is doing the Senate itself and her opposition friends any favors involving herself so deeply even on matters that she obviously does not fully comprehend.

Like that mechanical, indefatigable rabbit in the Energizer ad, Senator Jamby just keeps going and going and going.