A bridge-builder in T&T’s very di­verse so­ci­ety, a voice of rea­son, a gi­ant of the Sen­ate and the very best of the Up­per House.

This was part of the trib­ute paid in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal, who died last month. Sen­a­tors ob­served a minute’s si­lence on his pass­ing.

Teemal served in the Sen­ate for sev­en years and yes­ter­day, his seat was de­clared va­cant. Sophia Chote, SC, who has been ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion, was sworn in yes­ter­day.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har said Teemal was a man of qui­et dig­ni­ty, pro­found wis­dom and deep spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

“He em­bod­ied the very essence of what it means to serve as a sen­a­tor in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of our coun­try. He was guid­ed not by par­ti­san lean­ings but by prin­ci­ple, con­science and a deep com­mit­ment to the na­tion­al good.” Al­la­har added.

Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne said, “He was in­de­fati­ga­ble in his pa­tri­o­tism and ser­vice to peo­ple...al­ways dig­ni­fied, diplo­mat­ic, re­spect­ful and hum­ble… al­ways mea­sured in tone and con­tent, nev­er giv­en to ex­cess of ex­tremes, with no shout­ing or un­couth con­duct in or out of the cham­ber—no slan­der. Al­ways well re­searched in every con­tri­bu­tion, but will­ing to call a spade a spade, no mat­ter who was in Gov­ern­ment or Op­po­si­tion. An ex­em­plar in every as­pect.”

Browne added, “He was a gi­ant of the Sen­ate. It would be no ex­ag­ger­a­tion to state that if we could clone De­oroop Teemal, our na­tion and our world would be a bet­ter place… in liv­ing the way he lived, he made TT and the world sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter…”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Fran­cis Lewis said Teemal was nev­er one to gen­er­al­ly seek the spot­light, “but his voice when he used it car­ried weight.”

“He spoke not to score points but to el­e­vate dis­course…his in­ter­ven­tions and con­tri­bu­tions re­flect­ed the rare abil­i­ty to merge pol­i­cy in­sights with prac­ti­cal know-how and com­mon sense, al­ways an­chored in the ques­tion of ‘how does it serve the peo­ple of T&T?’” he said.

“His pres­ence in the cham­ber re­flect­ed the very best of the In­de­pen­dent bench of what the bench strives to be—calm in ar­gu­ment, mea­sured in tone, firm in con­vic­tion, but al­ways re­spect­ful of dif­fer­ing views. He was not on­ly in­de­pen­dent in name but al­so in thought and in con­duct. He brought ho­n­our to this bench.”

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, de­tail­ing Teemal’s con­tri­bu­tions, said his ap­proach was al­ways one of thor­ough­ness and fair­ness, ground­ed in ev­i­dence but nev­er de­tached from em­pa­thy.

“What set him apart was not on­ly his tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise but al­so the man­ner in which he car­ried him­self—re­spect­ful, mea­sured, and deeply col­le­gial,” Mark said.

“In a cham­ber of­ten marked by heat­ed con­tests and sharp de­bate, Sen­a­tor Teemal re­mind­ed us that one could dis­agree with­out di­vi­sion and that per­sua­sion and part­ner­ship were pow­er­ful tools of gov­er­nance.”

Mark said Teemal was a man whose con­tri­bu­tions el­e­vat­ed not on­ly Sen­ate de­lib­er­a­tions but al­so its stan­dards.

“His voice car­ried the weight of rea­son, his ques­tions sharp­ened our over­sight, and his pres­ence dig­ni­fied our pro­ceed­ings. We are all bet­ter leg­is­la­tors and bet­ter cit­i­zens for hav­ing served along­side this ho­n­ourable in­di­vid­ual,” he said.