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Friday, August 18, 2006
Malilong: Scoring propaganda points
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
To people outside of Congress who are aghast at the alacrity with which the impeachment case against President Arroyo was dumped, here’s a lesson in Political Science 101: an impeachment is not about sufficiency in form and substance but of numbers.
Indeed, the complaint against President Arroyo was, as pointed out by an administration congressman, dead on arrival. But it was not because it failed to make a recital of ultimate facts that would justify endorsement to and trial by the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, but because pro-impeachment forces do not have enough warm bodies in Congress.
That was how it was the last time around. This is how it is this year.
Opposition congressmen were aware of their handicap. Realistically, they had as much chance of pushing the complaint to the next level as of a lotto bettor hitting the jackpot.
But while one buys a lotto ticket out of hope, there was no such “just in case” in the minds of the House opposition when they affixed their signatures to the complaint. Yes, they had a cadaver sent to the justice committee. No, they were not expecting a miracle to happen because they knew that it is easier to turn water into wine or stone into bread than to convert a congressman facing an election in less than ten months from pro to anti-administration.
So why did they endorse the complaint, filed by the Black and White Movement, to Congress?
It’s all about propaganda. The “boxes of evidence” and the emotional speeches were and are not meant to convince any judge or jury but to influence public opinion.
Knowing their inability to make a dent in the House, Mrs. Arroyo’s critics have skillfully maneuvered to shift the fight to another battleground. In their scheme of things, one new doubter against Mrs. Arroyo is already a victory won.
In the local front and on an entirely different matter, that also seems to be where Mayor Tomas Osmeña is heading. His first attempt to convince the Court of Appeals to defrock the City of Talisay having failed, the Cebu City mayor has changed gears.
After filing a manifestation in Court, Osmeña holds a press conference in which he argues the merits of his new submission, saying that the figures supplied by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) upheld his position that Talisay lacked the requisite population to qualify for conversion into a city.
That is almost the same as saying that the number of dengue cases in a locality can better be ascertained from the listing of the gravedigger than from the records of the public health officer.
As Cebu 1st District Rep. Eduardo Gullas has correctly observed, it is not the DBM’s but the National Statistics Office’s function to conduct a population census. Osmeña knows that, too but who cares? He may or may not be able to sway the Court to take his side but he has already scored points in the propaganda war.
(fmmalilong@yahoo.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 18, 2006 issue)
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