TRIBUNE COMMENTARY BY NINEZ CACHO-OLIVARES: FAILURE AWAITS
MANILA, MARCH 13, 2011 (TRIBUNE) Funny, but those senators who signed Sen. TG Guingona's partial report without any reservations finding Merci Gutierrez guilty of betrayal of public trust on account of the plea bargain deal forged between the prosecutors and former military comptroller, discharged Gen. Carlos Garcia, and saying that she should have the decency to resign to "save the country from conflict," are the same ones who appear to have no decency to inhibit themselves as judges in the impeachment trial of the Ombudsman.
For how can they be seen as impartial judges, when they have already prejudged her and even declared her guilty of betrayal of public trust, and to the extent of Guingona trying to pass off his blue ribbon partial report as having been signed by the majority, when in fact, he never got a majority of signatories to approve his report?
And Guingona even lashed out at the Ombudsman, for taking her case to the media, when he and his Liberal Party (LP) colleagues, have been conducting a trial and conviction by publicity and even misleading the public with the results of the partial report.
The whole idea of course is that the LP senators and their allies in the Senate know that they don't have the numbers to impeach Merci. Admit it or not, it is most difficult to get 16 Senate votes to convict the Ombudsman, or, for that matter, any impeachable officer.
This failure to obtain 16 votes, incidentally, is the reason the anti-Estrada senators caused the collapse of then sitting President, Erap Estrada, and deliberately embraced the rule of force instead of the rule of law.
What's really going for Merci is that even if she does not get eight Senate votes, as long as the Noynoy allies in the Senate fail to get the 16 votes, she walks — at least for a year, until the petty and paranoid Malacañang tenant again orders his lackeys in the House to file yet another impeachment complaint against her.
That Noynoy allies know they can't convict Merci is pretty clear, hoping instead that building up public pressure for her to resign and portraying her guilty through all-out publicity will make her quit.
By now too, even the House and its prosecutors led by Niel Tupas Jr., also know that even if they have the numbers to impeach her in a plenary vote, they won't be able to get her convicted by the Senate, which is probably the reason they, along with the LP senators, as well as the Palace, are on a media drive to try and convict Merci by publicity — which is no different a style the anti-Estrada senators and their anti-Erap supporters, especially the anti-Erap media, utilized, but failed to get him convicted anyway.
That really was a dark day for both the House and the Senate and the incumbent House and Senate members should have, by now, learned their lesson, which is not to prostitute the law and the Constitution, as it merely weakens democracy and its institutions.
But it appears that they have not learned at all as they continue to engage in trial and conviction by publicity. And even this early, the Noynoy allies in Congress, are already into a second impeachment case, this time against eight Supreme Court justices whom the petty and paranoid Malacañang tenant sees as a "stumbling block" in his bid to have a subservient high court.
So what are they to do if they fail to convict Merci? Make the trial collapse, and stage yet another people power?
Still, with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile as a the presiding justice in the impeachment court, it is a sure bet that he will not do a Davide, the disgraceful Chief Justice of the high court who even actively supported the collapse of the impeachment trial of Estrada and went against the Constitution.
But those who clearly have prejudged the case and deem Merci guilty, should have the decency to inhibit themselves.
Still, whoever said they have that shred of decency in them?
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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