Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The bill to give the steel­pan pride of place on T&T’s Coat of Arms was passed in the Sen­ate on Tues­day night with unan­i­mous sup­port from the In­de­pen­dent and Op­po­si­tion bench­es.

In her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al un­der­scored her side’s sup­port, “I wish to lend my sup­port to this bill so there’s no con­ster­na­tion on the part of any Gov­ern­ment mem­ber and they have any doubt that we’re here to sup­port this move to give the pan a place of promi­nence on our Coat of Arms.”

She added that the UNC had in­di­cat­ed its sup­port dur­ing the de­bate on the bill in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­u­la­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, pro­vides for the re­place­ment of Christo­pher Colum­bus’ three ships on the Coat of Arms with the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment, the steel­pan.

Dur­ing the sit­ting, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas ad­vised Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der to “take a walk” (leave the cham­ber), af­ter he shout­ed at Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne to “give (Pan Trin­ba­go) back dey land!” Browne had dis­missed claims that the Gov­ern­ment want­ed the land.

In the clos­ing stages of the de­bate, Ly­der said while he was hap­py about the plan to put the steel­pan on the Coat for Arms, he felt a sense of be­tray­al at the fail­ure to in­clude more peo­ple in the process.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Helon Fran­cis said the move was about chang­ing his­to­ry.

“There’s a rea­son why a Hin­du is proud to be Hin­du, there’s a rea­son why a Catholic is proud to be Catholic, why a Chris­t­ian is proud to be a Chris­t­ian. There’s a rea­son why you are who you are—and now let there be a re­minder of why we are Trinidad and To­ba­go. Let this so­lid­i­fy our rea­son and pu­ri­fy our blood and trans­form for a bet­ter T&T,” he said.

Fran­cis said a child might be mo­ti­vat­ed by the sym­bol be­cause it is “some­thing that is pure­ly us and we should see beau­ty in that.”

He added, “So let’s not get caught up in the winds of po­lit­i­cal di­a­logue. Let’s take our time to un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing and give it its due re­spect.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemul agreed it was a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion and en­dorsed the many pos­i­tive com­ments about the change. How­ev­er, he asked whether what was in­dige­nous to T&T would be the sole cri­te­ria for what is in­clud­ed on na­tion­al sym­bols and how that would be de­ter­mined.

Teemul won­dered whether an op­por­tu­ni­ty had been missed to in­clude oth­er sym­bols and said there was the risk of the po­lar­is­ing of those who felt alien­at­ed from the na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, in wind­ing up the de­bate, said while all agreed the steel­pan is the best sym­bol to be on the Coat of Arms, some dis­agreed with the way the an­nounce­ment was made at a PNM con­ven­tion. But he said PNM par­ty con­ven­tions aren’t like UNC fo­rums. At PNM con­ven­tions, he said, an­nounce­ments are made about ma­jor Gov­ern­ment poli­cies, as is al­so done at Re­pub­li­can or De­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tions or by po­lit­i­cal par­ties in the UK.

He said no sug­ges­tions were giv­en on what should be the fo­rum to choose a sym­bol. He asked if the Gov­ern­ment should have spent large sums of mon­ey to go through­out the coun­try ask­ing what sym­bol to put on the Coat of Arms.

Mitchell not­ed the is­sue had been in the pub­lic do­main for years.