SEN. Robinhood Padilla, in one of the Senate hearings, took issue with the fact that we offer a military response to China Coast Guard incursions into the West Philippine Sea. He asserted, wrongfully and without proper full knowledge, that the coast guard sent by Beijing was but a civilian arm, just like our own Philippine Coast Guard (PCG). Padilla would have benefited a lot had he been given a short course in comparative politics to know that China has a totally different system, and where, unlike in the Philippines, the coast guard there practically serves under the military.

Sen. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva continues to mouth his religious bias as the basis for his opposition to absolute divorce. He seems unaware of the constitutional provision where the state is prohibited from giving preferential treatment to, or discriminating in favor of, any particular religion. What is odd about Villanueva's religiosity is that while he seems to protect God's edict on the sanctity of marriage when it comes to absolute divorce, he is willing to compromise when it comes to annulment, as if what is being annulled is not the very marriage he considers as God-ordained. He is ready to reward those who would break God's commandment against lying since he is willing to absolve the sin of those who will lie, buy the testimony of experts and feign psychological incapacity to get out of a failed marriage, and refuse to grant the same to those who will be honest enough to admit that marrying someone was a mistake.