The at­mos­phere at the fu­ner­al ser­vice of for­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles mir­rored that of a spir­it­ed par­lia­men­tary de­bate sur­round­ing the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bill yes­ter­day.

Charles died at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on De­cem­ber 31 at the age of 77.

Self-gov­er­nance was a top­ic that deeply res­onat­ed with Charles through­out his life, as he cham­pi­oned fair treat­ment and the pow­er for To­ba­go to make its own laws and de­ci­sions.

Dur­ing his four-hour fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex yes­ter­day, the is­sues of au­ton­o­my and his con­tri­bu­tions to­ward the bill again took the spot­light as sev­er­al speak­ers high­light­ed it in their rec­ol­lec­tion of his con­tri­bu­tion to the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment.

In his ad­dress to the con­gre­ga­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the bills (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill and the To­ba­go Is­land Ad­min­is­tra­tion Bill), which are still be­fore a par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, will again go be­fore Par­lia­ment this year and when they do, To­ba­go will see who has its best in­ter­est at heart.

Not­ing calls for self-gov­ern­ment made by at­ten­dees, he said, “The peo­ple of To­ba­go can­not and will not get any­thing called self-gov­ern­ment or any­thing of that mat­ter which in­volved the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out the in­volve­ment of the peo­ple of Trinidad,” Row­ley said.

“Out of re­spect for the peo­ple of To­ba­go and their con­sul­ta­tion, the Cab­i­net that I led put that bill in Cab­i­net with­out chang­ing a full stop or com­ma. You hear any­thing else from any­body else, it is a lie.

As he said this, mem­bers of the THA Ex­ec­u­tive, seat­ed in the first five rows, looked to each oth­er.

“It came to To­ba­go at a time of an elec­tion (THA elec­tion 2021). One of my great dis­ap­point­ments was that the gen­er­al sen­ti­ment in To­ba­go was that the bill be re­ject­ed.”

Row­ley said he was cer­tain that Charles was sat­is­fied with his role in the jour­ney to self-gov­er­nance. He said the peo­ple of To­ba­go had al­ready spo­ken in their ma­jor­i­ty and it is now up to the Par­lia­ment to make their de­ci­sion.

“What came out of that Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee that was root­ed in those bills that came to To­ba­go was a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign to re­ject the bills. The bill is still alive in the Par­lia­ment, to­day is Jan­u­ary 4, speak­ing as the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, dur­ing this year, those bills will be put be­fore the Par­lia­ment for the 41 mem­bers of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Par­lia­ment to vote on it on your be­half,” he said.

“On that day, you will see who is run­ning with the hares and hunt­ing with the hounds and de­cide whether you can get in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment un­der con­di­tions like that.”

The bills were ini­tial­ly de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on June 28 and 29, 2021 and the process reached the com­mit­tee stage. The mo­tion had called for the House to adopt the JSC’s re­port on the bills but both the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) had ar­gued at the time that the bills did not rep­re­sent the wish­es of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

The call for au­ton­o­my - a call Charles has made through­out his life - had been reignit­ed ear­li­er in the ser­vice af­ter cur­rent Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he will con­tin­ue the work Charles start­ed decades ago.

Au­gus­tine ex­plained that Charles and his team ex­ten­sive­ly re­viewed all the pro­pos­als and it­er­a­tions sent to the Par­lia­ment re­gard­ing the au­ton­o­my bill for To­ba­go. They then pro­posed key el­e­ments that must be amend­ed in the bill to meet the de­sires of the is­land and its peo­ple.

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to both Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and Sen­a­tors present at the fu­ner­al, he vowed to send a sum­ma­ry of the lat­est pro­posed amend­ments to the Par­lia­ment. But, he de­nied com­ments that Charles and the team in­tend­ed to trash the ex­ist­ing bill.

“It was not Charles’ de­sire that the bill cur­rent­ly be­fore Par­lia­ment should be thrown out in its en­tire­ty. It was his de­sire, and I agree with him, that the bill that’s be­fore the Par­lia­ment should be amend­ed to the ex­tent it re­flects the wish­es of the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

In re­sponse to is­sues of au­ton­o­my raised dur­ing the fu­ner­al, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Roodal Mooni­lal told Guardian Me­dia that the par­ty is pre­pared to sup­port the bills once they were what To­ba­go had agreed on.

“I was dis­gust­ed by the pre­sen­ta­tion by the Prime Min­is­ter. He made a po­lit­i­cal speech that was very ar­ro­gant and hog­wash. Then he went on to sug­gest the Op­po­si­tion pre­vent­ed the pas­sage of the bill. That is not true,” Mooni­lal said.

“The very same Ho­choy Charles, whose fu­ner­al he at­tend­ed, it was both Ho­choy and Far­ley (Au­gus­tine) who ob­ject­ed to the pas­sage of the bill and the UNC took on their con­sid­er­a­tion and ex­pressed that in the Par­lia­ment.”

Charles’ for­mer col­league Ash­worth Jack said the bill must take prece­dence now that he had passed. He said he be­lieved Charles’ death will al­so now strength­en the fight for self-gov­er­nance.

“In­ter­nal self-gov­er­nance was his ba­by, and it must be good that we are sit­ting here pay­ing homage to Ho­choy, and sit­ting here in this place at the same time are all the peo­ple who are re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing the law so that To­ba­go could have self-gov­er­nance.”

Through­out his ser­vice in pur­suit of To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, Charles was hailed as a man of un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment, strength, and courage.

Dur­ing the ser­vice, the con­gre­ga­tion al­so cheered when some of Charles’ rel­a­tives and close friends, in their trib­utes, de­mand­ed that gov­ern­ment lead­ers ho­n­our his lega­cy by giv­ing To­ba­go the au­ton­o­my it wants.

The fu­ner­al was al­so at­tend­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, To­ba­go West and East MPs Sham­fa Cud­joe and Ayan­na Web­ster Roy and for­mer chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don among oth­ers.

Charles was lat­er cre­mat­ed at Bel­grove’s Fu­ner­al Home in a pri­vate cer­e­mo­ny af­ter the ser­vice.