|
Friday, August 25, 2006
Editorials: Trashed impeachment case
The impeachment case against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in the trash bin.
This time, efforts to unseat her from her well-entrenched position in the Palace by the Pasig will stay trashed for good, and become part of our country’s history.
But what has unfurled before our nation’s eyes is the strange ways of democracy.
In the past 26 months, we witnessed the unfolding of one of the most turbulent phases of our country’s history.
From the time President Arroyo assumed the presidency up to the present, loud and often raucous chorus of protests, claiming election fraud, followed her trail.
Truly, our democracy works in ways that’s most befuddling to a nation’s citizenry, yet it is one that establishes the primal means for the people to achieve stable governance and as equally viable social order.
While the ascent of Arroyo to the nation’s highest post has been questioned by a sector of the national society every inch of the way, still our democratic process held and continues to hold allowing this republic to stay whole.
Not guiltless
But strange as it may seem, the junking of the impeachment case against Arroyo does not mean she is guiltless of all the charges hurled against her.
It merely means she has acquired stronger control of the political machinery in Congress that enabled her to gain ascendance of the process that would have brought her to face an impeachment trial in the Senate.
Such a feat is possible only in a democracy such as ours, and can only be achieved in a situation where the people are in position to directly exercise their political will in freedom.
That the political opposition and the presidential detractors have not been able to muster the needed strength to successfully push the impeachment complaint through does not mean the President has been cleansed of guilt.
Responsibility
As a former national official who is now member of a powerful religious group and has become head of the Institute for Solidarity in Asia said, “there is a gnawing hopelessness and cynicism that are pushing Filipinos to give up on their country.
We blame the President. We blame the government and its people. But we must acknowledge that our country is also our very own responsibility.”
And so it is and the only one we have.
Certainly, it is the responsibility, nay duty, of citizens to make this republic prevail and endure despite the guilt or failure, or weakness of its leadership.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 25, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
