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Saturday, September 03, 2005
Nalzaro: Numbers game
By Bobby Nalzaro
In a collegial body, the majority wins.
That’s the tyranny of number. Thus, we cannot blame the pro-administration members of the House committee on justice for using their number in junking the three impeachment complaints against President Arroyo.
But while we cannot blame them for doing so, we can question their wisdom. What was their basis in “killing” the impeachment complaints?
The committee only recognized the original complaint filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano then junked it for being insufficient in substance. Meaning, they were not convinced of the merits of the complaint, as it failed to give specific details of the charges.
But did they vote according to their conscience or did they do it because of the promise of Malacañang to finance their infrastructure projects? Did they base their votes on party affiliation? Why didn’t the legislators let the truth come out?
In her pronouncements after the “Hello Garci” scandal broke out and calls for her resignation snowballed, the President asked her detractors not to go to the streets and instead challenged them to impeach her so she will be given the opportunity to answer the allegations. Yet, her minions in Congress moved heaven and earth to block the impeachment process.
We can therefore say that Arroyo was not sincere in her pronouncements that she was willing to face the accusations against her in a proper body. Or that she wanted to prove that she did not, for example, rig last year's elections or receive jueteng payola.
But if she really did nothing wrong, then she should have faced those accusations fair and square by allowing the impeachment proceedings to push through. As I pointed out in my previous columns, if the issues hounding the Arroyo administration are not resolved by a competent body, this will continue to hound her and she cannot regain people's confidence in her government.
The opposition, on the other hand, should not lose hope. They still have a last card, which is to gather the “magic 79” signatures that would allow them to overturn the House justice committee decision and force Congress to send the articles of impeachment to the Impeachment Court, which is the Senate, so a full blown trial will be held.
The problem with pro-impeachment congressmen is that they sometimes overact. Their walking out and their throwing pieces of paper in the halls of Congress in last Tuesday's committee hearing were very un-parliamentary.
(bgnalzaro@gmanetwork.com/ 0919-3181404)
(September 3, 2005 issue)
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