ERNESTO HERRERA: CLOSURE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
MANILA, JULY 19, 2011 - (MANILA TIMES) By Ernesto F. Herrera - DID Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo really order former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to make sure she won by at least one million votes over her rival, the late Fernando Poe Jr. in the 2004 presidential election?
Do the Filipino people still want to know or have they moved on?
Filipinos have notoriously short memories and are quite forgiving of their leaders' wrongdoing. But the Hello Garci scandal concerns the very essence of our democracy and the integrity of our electoral process. The suppression of truth when the answers we are looking for are not unknowable and at this time certainly not moot is most unforgivable.
If you had the biggest case of electoral fraud on your hands, would you not want to get to the bottom of it? We have to know.
The inaction, apathy and evasiveness in dealing with Hello Garci and the other scandals of the Macapagal administration has damaged the institutions of government and this nation's social and moral fabric.
The new Comelec leadership and Justice officials must take it upon themselves to investigate and ferret out the truth behind Hello Garci and bring the case to a satisfactory resolution, especially now that some of the masterminds are talking or are willing to talk.
Have Filipinos forgotten? Have they simply moved on? Well, it's not hard to remind them.
I myself can distinctly recall how the GMA administration conducted itself during FPJ's burial in December 2004, when it seemed they were preparing for a siege, what with tanks, armored personal carriers, container vans, barbed wire and entire contingents of soldiers blocking off the streets leading to Malacañang, and President Arroyo appealing to the military to be loyal to her government.
If GMA had really won by more than a million votes what was there to be afraid of? Why were they so scared of a dead man?
After Hello Garci it seemed GMA's presidency was on life support until the day her tenure was over. Her approval and credibility ratings were battered, her political capital, at least among the populace, all but spent.
At one point a Social Weather Station Survey showed majority of Filipinos wanted her to be impeached (79 percent), to resign (64 percent), or to be removed by People Power (51 percent).
She was against the whole nation and yet she survived through the might of the state, using the military and the laws to impose her will upon the people.
We are talking here not just about closure but accountability.
During her time in Malacañang, GMA used the laws of the land as political weapons, to go after anybody who dared cross her administration, who dared go after her by investigating her acts of corruption. She used the powers of her presidency to protect her from prosecution.
All the virtues of a good, working democracy—civil society, civil liberties, constitutionalism, the rule of law, popular sovereignty—were infringed upon by her official actions.
GMA issued executive orders like EO 464 to suppress protests rallies and marches, to sanction the media, and go after legitimate political opposition. In pursuing investigations into corruption and human rights abuses, the laws of the land were largely ignored under her term, even as members of the media, the clergy, and activists disappeared or ended up dead, killed by special brigades that operated outside the law.
The Ampatuan massacre was GMA's creation. The blood of Jonas Burgos and other activists is on her hands too.
GMA brazenly flouted the law. She was able to assume office despite allegations of massive fraud in 2004—allegations that were never investigated and were quickly swept under the rug by a compliant Comelec, Congress and Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
There was no due process applied to challenge the votes of Mrs. Arroyo in the congressional canvass. Congress simply acquiesced to GMA. And the Supreme Court also did nothing. In fact, the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, dismissed by a unanimous vote the electoral protest filed by FPJ against GMA.
All these happened not under a dictatorship. Unlike during the Marcos era, the people in Congress and the Supreme Court were not intimidated into passive acceptance by GMA. Acquiescence in their case was obtained by collaboration, not by intimidation.
Most Filipinos believe they did not elect GMA and that the 2004 presidential election was rigged.
Most of them still believe that the corruption scandals that plagued her administration should still be investigated and that she should answer for them. Otherwise Noynoy Aquino would not have won the Presidency. Aquino promised to solve past cases of electoral fraud especially the Hello Garci scandal.
GMA is the only President who has not been held accountable. Erap, even if he was pardoned, was convicted and sent to jail. Marcos was deposed by People Power and died in exile.
But GMA? She's been untouchable. She and her people up to now have been immune to accountability.
We don't owe it just to FPJ. We also owe it to ourselves to find closure and accountability, to find truth and justice by resolving the cases of alleged electoral fraud, in 2004 as well as in 2007, and the other cases of anomalies and human rights abuses concerning the GMA administration.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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