Is the
President Digging Her Own Grave?
Juggling between reconciliation efforts and obvious
attempts to kill the impeachment procedure in Congress, President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo is throwing all cautions into the wind to be able to
cling to power. Is she gaining ground or losing it?
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
Reps. Francis Escudero, Rafael Mariano, and Clavel Martinez in a
discussion during a break from the hearing on the impeachment
complaint, Aug. 24
Photo by Dabet Castañeda |
Political analysts, progressive
congressmen and the spokesperson of a middle-force movement agree that
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s reconciliation efforts with certain
opposition figures led by two former presidents – Corazon Aquino and
Joseph Estrada - will not work. They also warn that any move by
administration congressmen to kill the impeachment complaint against the
President will be like digging her own political grave.
Impeachment proceedings have been
initiated in the House of Representatives against the president for
electoral fraud and other offenses. In the amended complaint filed by
opposition and party-list congressmen and a group of people’s
organizations, the charge sheet points to culpable violation of the
Constitution; bribery; graft and corruption; and betrayal of public trust.
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Interviewed by Bulatlat this
week, Rep. Clavel Martinez (Second District, Cebu) said Macapagal-Arroyo’s
reason for reconciling with Estrada is illegal.
Newspaper reports say Estrada, the
ousted president who is facing plunder charges in the Sandiganbayan, is
being offered release from detention on recognizance in exchange for his
withdrawal of support to the campaign to oust Macapagal-Arroyo. “In a
plunder case, there is no such thing as recognizance,” the third-term lady
representative said. “More so, in such a case, even bail has been denied.”
“That is all for public consumption in
order to pacify the people and make it appear that she is really reaching
out,” Martinez, one of the House prosecutors in the impeachment of Estrada
in 2000, said. “But it’s a whole lot of baloney.”
“Connivance of two crooks”
Dr. Darby Santiago, spokesperson of
the middle force alliance White Ribbon Movement (WRM), also condemns the
reconciliation efforts saying it is but “a connivance of two crooks which
aims to fool the Filipino people.”
One of the younger progressive
congressmen, Rep. Erin Tañada, (First District, Quezon) also warned that
any reconciliation between the ruling class would not effect a genuine
political change. If the aim of reconciliation is to move forward, he
said, it should answer the primordial question of “what’s in it for the
marginalized sectors?”
On the other hand, political analyst
and University of the Philippines (UP) Prof. Luis Teodoro said that the
reconciliation effort of the president is doubled-edged which may leave
the president blood-dry.
“It could pacify the Estrada forces
but it will surely enrage the members of the middle class who were one of
the pivotal forces that threw Estrada out of the Palace in 2001,” Teodoro
told Bulatlat.
Due process
The president had earlier tried to
gain ground by agreeing to settle all charges against her through
impeachment. Current proceedings in the House Committee on Justice (CoJ)
show however that the president’s declaration is all just a show and that
in fact her political allies appear to be under instructions to kill the
impeachment.
Even House Minority Floor Leader
Francis Escudero, in a forum in University of the Philippines in Diliman,
Quezon City on Aug. 25, admitted that he foresees the House majority to
kill the impeachment complaint this week.
Reports of bribery among the members
of the Congress using the Road Users’ Tax have been confirmed by Reps.
Rolex Suplico (5th district, Iloilo City) and Eulogio “Amang”
Magsaysay (AVE Party-list). In fact, Magsaysay’s withdrawal of his
signature in the impeachment complaint and his public admission that “he
has received tremendous pressure” to do so attests to the harassment and
bribery he had complained about two weeks ago.
Prof. Benito Lim, another political
analyst, said that with all the efforts to reconcile and kill the
impeachment, the president is remiss on a very important thing – that of
answering the allegations leveled against her.
“She has not given any genuine answer
but as president, she has an obligation to do so,” he said.
Instead of allowing the impeachment to
ferret out the truth, Lim said, the president is instead reining in the
House majority to just dismiss the issue.
In the two House hearings on the
impeachment last week, known Macapagal-Arroyo allies mostly belonging to
the majority, voted to first discuss the prejudicial questions raised by
Rep. Edcel Lagman (First District, Albay). The prejudicial questions
include what complaint the CoJ should tackle.
“Immediately before the voting, the
House Speaker was present to make sure that those given concessions voted
the way they are expected to vote,” Martinez observed.
There are three complaints filed
against Macapagal-Arroyo: the original Oliver Lozano complaint, the Jose
Lapuz complaint, and the amended Lozano complaint.
House debate
In a subsequent debate, administration
congressmen said that it is the first complaint that should be tackled
while the two other complaints will have to wait for one and two years,
respectively, because the rules provide a one-year bar on lodging an
impeachment complaint to the same public official.
Pro-impeachment congressmen, however,
argued that the first and third complaint should be considered as one
complaint because the third is not separate but only an amendment of the
first. The rules, they said, do not prohibit amendments to any complaint.
The members of the impeachment
prosecution team led by Rep. Ronaldo Zamora (Lone District, San Juan)
could not help but say that the majority is trying to dismiss the amended
complaint on mere technicality because it covers substantial charges
against the president.
The amended complaint is also the only
complaint that accuses the president of violations of human rights and
civil liberties. While Escudero said that the inclusion of human rights
violations in the complaint is a landmark case in the House - being the
first and only instance in history that such violations are grounds for a
president’s impeachment - administration congressmen took turns in
attacking the impeachment prosecution team for including such violations
in the complaint.
In fact, Rep. Luis Villafuerte (Second
District, Camarines Sur) said cases of human rights violations have no
basis at all and could never be proven in court.
Worst case
scenario
Lim said the worst scenario for the
Congress opposition would be a vote by the CoJ to tackle only the original
Lozano complaint. But because this complaint is rather weak and lacking
“form and substance,” as admitted by Zamora, it may just all together be
dismissed by the committee.
This would mean that there would be a
status quo as well as an opportunity for the president to persuade the
Supreme Court to lift the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on the
Expanded-Value Added Tax (E-VAT).
The E-VAT’s implementation would also
mean, however, more economic hardships for the masses that would likely
lead to a social unrest. This scenario, Lim said, could also lead the
people to take to the streets and call for a change in government.
Down the
streets
Professor Teodoro said that “The basic
infirmity…is that the president did something wrong.” With this scenario,
he said there seems to be no way for Macapagal-Arroyo but to quit.
The dismissal of the impeachment
complaint, he said, would be seen as a manipulation by Malacañang. In that
case, it would inevitably force the people to consider
extra-constitutional means to settle the issue.
Tañada echoed this, saying, “If they
kill the impeachment complaint and this will be seen by the people that
she (the president) was not true to her word, then the people might take
matters into their own hands as provided for also in the constitution.”
Martinez also warned: “If they kill
the impeachment, they should be scared of the people who are righteous.”
In relation to this, Santiago said the
middle forces and the masses would find other forms of redress. He also
warned that this could drive the middle forces out into the streets
similar to how they swarmed along historic Edsa when Estrada allies in the
Senate blocked the opening of the “second envelope” during the former
president’s impeachment trial in January 2001. The second envelope
allegedly carried strong evidence that Estrada received jueteng payola.
Succession
What if the impeachment, having
garnered 79 signatures, goes to the Senate which, acting as an impeachment
court, eventually convicts the president as charged?
In this case, Lim said the
vice-president is therefore the most acceptable successor. Both Lim and
Teodoro said the strongest possibility is a Noli de Castro takeover save
for the slightest possibility that Loren Legarda, vice-presidential
candidate, succeeds in her bid to oust de Castro.
Legarda has filed a case against de
Castro before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) over allegations
that de Castro – like the president - cheated in the May 2004 elections.
But the present administration appears
to be derailing the former lady senator’s case as proven by the illegal
raid by the CIDG of a house where the opposition’s (and Legarda’s) boxes
of evidences of electoral fraud were kept. The evidences were seized but
were returned two weeks after.
Whether the ouster of Macapagal-Arroyo
would be through legal or extra-legal means, de Castro would be the most
likely successor, Lim also said.
Conversely, Teodoro did not rule out
the possibility of the president being replaced by a transitional council,
the concept of which has been propagated by progressive and multisectoral
people’s organizations led by the Bagong Alyangsang Makabayan (Bayan or
New Patriotic Alliance).
“Extra-Constitutional options have
succeeded in the past and a transitional council, it being such, is also
possible,” he said.
But first, Teodoro said, the people
should be informed about the council. “Dahil kulang ang kaalaman ng
masa, hindi maiiwasan na mayroong matakot. Kaya kailangan ipaliwanag ng
husto sa mas malawak na paraan” (Because it is as yet little known, it
is possible for some people to fear it. It should be substantially
explained to the people.), he said.
“If the idea is disseminated
expansively, there would be a widespread acceptance of the transitional
council because the people would realize that it is a better alternative,”
he said. Bulatlat
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