By Francisco S. Tatad1
On orders of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, 188 members of
the House of Representatives, which has the exclusive power to initiate
impeachment cases, have impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice
Renato Corona without reading the Articles of Impeachment, and without a
committee hearing or a floor debate.
At first Malacanang tried to deny its involvement. But a Malacanang ally
quickly disabused the public by saying the impeachment complaint was
drafted at the Palace. And the President, who likes to be called Pinoy,
formally thanked the congressmen for their "help."
In making the congressmen sign an unread document in exchange for certain
tangible gifts, Pinoy unduly risked his political reputation for being previously
incorrupt. Critics see him now as the first corruptor of Congress.
In their view, he has made himself impeachable in the very act of impeaching
the Chief Justice. He, rather than Corona, should be the one impeached for
culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, corruption, betrayal of public
trust and other high crimes. He should be the one tried and removed from
office.
These are strong words, but nothing more than words. Having full control of
the House, Pinoy is in no danger of ever getting impeached, whatever wrong
The author was Senate Majority Leader during the 2000-2001 impeachment trial of then
President Joseph Ejercito Estrada. His book, A Nation on Fire: the Unmaking of Joseph Ejercito
Estrada and the Remaking of Democracy in the Philippines, is by far the most authoritative
documentation of the trial and ouster of Estrada.
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he does. But he has provoked a constitutional crisis, and strong words and
strong passions are the first elements of this crisis.
The Articles of Impeachment, consisting of eight charges, are now in the
Senate. The Senate has the sole power to try and decide impeachment
cases. All 23 sitting senators have taken their oath to render "impartial
justice." Some of them, however, seem to take a cavalier view of the
impeachment process.
They say that impeachment is nothing but a political process, to be decided
on the basis of public opinion, not on the basis of the evidence. If that were
the case, then the Senate should have no role in it. The case should be put to
the people in a referendum, which should tell us what the "public opinion" is,
so long as everyone participates and the process is not rigged.
But that is not what the Constitution says. Impeachment is a constitutional
process. The Senate tries and decides all impeachment cases, on the
basis of the evidence, not on the basis of party line or personal sentiment of
the "judges."
Now, a former assemblyman and former national president of the Integrated
Bar of the Philippines (IBP) has asked the Supreme Court to restrain the
Senate from hearing the complaint, on the ground that the allegations are all
null and void. Atty. Vicente Millora's petition runs into a few pages. He is the
first one; others, including the IBP itself, could follow suit.
What happens then if and when the Court finds the complaint invalid? Would
the President recognize and respect such a ruling, given the fact that he
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seems to believe he is free not to obey what the Court says? Would it not
create a crisis so grave that the only possible outcome would be either to
completely abolish the Constitution or to remove the President?
Should the case come to trial, Pinoy may have to move heaven and earth to
make sure the Chief Justice is convicted. Can he do to the Senate what he
did to the House without creating a farce? And supposing he fails, how will it
all end? Nobody knows.
In 1991, Cory Aquino, Pinoy's mother, led a big march to the Senate to
pressure the senators to approve the proposed RP-US treaty extending
the term of the American bases by another ten years. She thought she
could count on their votes, having helped 22 of them get elected in the 1987
senatorial elections. So she sat in the gallery and watched them vote. But the
ingrates voted "according to their consciences," and the treaty lost.
Pinoy could yet repeat his mother's experience. Should that happen, after
he had put his presidency on the line, he may no longer be able to govern. He
may have to resign, or else be removed by other means. I don't want to see
that happen to Pinoy.
He deserves a break. He has made enough mistakes. He must redeem
himself. He must abandon his zero-sum game and rethink his course.
He must choose democracy clearly and irrevocably against any form of
dictatorship. And he must do so now.
Pinoy is a democratically elected president, not a revolutionary one. He must
act as one. He is presiding over a deeply divided country, in a time of troubled
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peace, amid so many natural and man-made calamities and other worries.
He should show the world he has the will and the skill to unite his people and
to mitigate the humanitarian disasters no man is able to prevent.
Senator Joker Arroyo, Cory's former Executive Secretary and hardly an
adversary, chides Pinoy for assuming control of all the three branches of
government without proclaiming martial law, and without any of the conditions
obtaining which could otherwise justify such a proclamation. Many agree with
Senator Arroyo.
In 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law all over the
country, in response to the communist rebellion that threatened to take over
the government. It was a legitimate response to an actual emergency. By
contrast, many see Pinoy's rush into one-man rule as an attempt to conduct
the presidency as a kind of video game, of which he is reputedly a master.
But neither life nor government is a game. Not anywhere, least of all in
a constitutional democracy. Would Ninoy Aquino, Pinoy's father, have
approved of it, were he alive today? It is not unfair to ask that question, since
Pinoy ran on his parents' record, lacking one of his own. The best answer
that comes to mind is--- maybe yes, maybe no, no one can say.
Filipinos remember Ninoy as the opposition leader whom Marcos jailed during
martial law and who was eventually assassinated in 1983 at the Manila
international airport while coming home from his medical furlough in Boston.
But what most Filipinos do not know is that Ninoy was a most passionate
advocate of martial law.
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Ninoy liked to tell his friends in the press that should he ever become
president, and many thought that would happen one day, the first thing he
would do was to declare martial law, exactly as Park Chung Hee did in Korea,
to consolidate power and accelerate the country's economic development. But
Marcos beat him to the draw.
Now Pinoy has fulfilled, or is about to fulfill, his late father's dream without
formally proclaiming martial law or national emergency. Is Pinoy simply
trying to follow his father's vision, or is he being egged on by some power or
principality?
In its Dec. 23, 2011 issue, the US-based Executive Intelligence Review
reports that Ninoy has become a frontline supporter of US President Barack
Obama's "Ring around China" policy, along with Japan's Nobuteru Ishihara,
governor of Tokyo and secretary general of LDP. EIR is not the least
passionate when writing about Mr. Obama, but it was light years ahead of
everybody else in predicting the collapse of the US housing bubble and the
euro, and the continuing meltdown of the trans-Atlantic economies.
EIR says that during Obama's recent Asia tour, Pinoy insisted that the US
denounce China as an aggressor in the South China Sea. EIR then cites
Pinoy's recent speech calling on the Armed Forces to prepare for external
challenges, not just internal ones. At the same time it sees more US warships
being dispatched to the area close to the Spratlys.
Is President Obama the cartilege that has stiffened Pinoy's back and made
him believe he could take over the entire government without provoking
resistance or hostility? Supported by the US, Pinoy could be tempted to
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believe he could do anything without risking his office. After all, the Filipino
poor have remained docile until now, the remnants of the communist left that
were a threat to Marcos are now his allies, the elite look only after their own,
and the Americans will go after any dictator anywhere, except when he is
their own.
Still history is full of strongmen whom the US had coddled for years and then
dumped as soon as they were no longer useful to them. Pinoy would do well
to learn from their experience, including from his own father's. Ninoy himself
may have narrated his own story to his wife and children.
In 1957, during the so-called Permesta revolt in Indonesia, Ninoy undertook
secret operations for the CIA, according to the book "Subversion as Foreign
Policy" by Audrey Kahin and George Mc T Kahin, quoting the late Senator
Jose Wright Diokno as its source.
According to that story, Ninoy set up a clandestine radio station in Indonesia
for the rebels, shipped them guns from a third country, and opened up
Hacienda Luisita as a training ground for the rebel pilots. But when the
Americans saw they could not topple President Sukarno, they promptly pulled
out without telling Ninoy, leaving him in the dark and holding the proverbial
empty bag.
It is not known how that affected Ninoy's relations with the CIA. But in 1978,
when Ninoy ran from his detention cell for the interim Batasang Pambansa,
then Defense Secretary (now Senate president) Juan Ponce Enrile accused
him of being a CIA agent. He did not deny it. His only reply was that he
worked "with the CIA", but "not for the CIA."
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about it.
Twenty-eight years after Ninoy's assassination, and no mastermind has
been identified, conspiracy theorists have started saying that NInoy was
terminally ill when he came home from Boston in 1983, and had agreed to
be sacrificed in a foreign intelligence operation specifically intended to bring
down Marcos, make Cory president, and restore the primacy of US interests
in the Philippines.
I do not buy that theory. But others may. Pinoy has to intervene. He has to
unlock the mystery about his father's death, to end all speculation, once and
for all. But he must, at the outset, make an irrevocable commitment to our
constitutional democracy, respect the separation of powers, act more the
statesman he is supposed to be, and make his countrymen, not any power or
principality, the sovereign masters in their own country.
