Rule of law and poetic justice
By Noralyn Mustafa
Inquirer News Service

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THE LATEST EXCITING NEWS, AS I WRITE THIS, is the disclosure of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that anti-Arroyo forces will launch a coup in December and "forcibly" remove Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) from Malacañang.

The only reason one can believe this is: forcible, physical option-aside from cutting off power and water supply-seems to be the only way to accomplish the objective of removing GMA from the Palace; because for as long as Virgilio Garcillano remains hidden, actual occupation is the only claim she has to the seat of power and the presidency.

Otherwise, there is nothing shocking -- not even surprising -- in Santiago's revelation, coming as it does as just one in a series of almost daily mind-boggling developments that leave us breathless, frustrated, depressed, infuriated, enraged; sick to the very core of our beings.

How have we come to this? Why are we suffering the darkest, most agonizing, most difficult, most despised period in our history, including the martial law regime? (At least then the Blue Diamonds of the Philippine Air Force were flying high.)

What have we done to deserve a government against the people? An administration with zero credibility that has made chronic lying a matter of policy and severely punishes and silences people who tell the truth? An administration that pays off, threatens, kidnaps and makes disappear vital witnesses?

Governance, or a semblance of it, is carried on in front of TV cameras, while real power reportedly lies in a "junto" composed of martial law relics who in turn-to give a semblance of legitimacy to their rule-follow the beat not of the Cabbage Patch Doll they are propping up, but that of the Commander who refuses to just fade away.

How is it that our fate now lies in the hands of three people -- GMA, FVR (Fidel V. Ramos) and JDV (Jose de Venecia)-who use us as mere bargaining chips in their power -- play?

This is a text message I got last month: "I see a non-President. She walks around in the Palace pretending not to know that she is a non-President. She issues orders and appoints people as if she were President. Let us help her realize that she is a non-President, so she can move out."

Well, that doesn't seem to work, and not for lack of trying.

And nothing the opposition and all those who want to remove Ms Arroyo from power will do is going to work because she is always one step ahead of them. Even as we speak, the so-called Constitutional Commission she has formed is already drafting a constitution that she will use to perpetuate herself and her allies in power.

In fact, she was 10 steps ahead of them when she insisted on Noli de Castro as her running mate, thereby shooting two birds with one stone: to attract the masa votes that she knew she could hardly get; and to discourage all thoughts of ousting her because we would be too scared of the prospect of De Castro as President. And she succeeded.

Even now, you still hear people who otherwise want nothing more than her departure, asking "Sino naman ang papalit
(Who's to replace her)?"

Not too long ago, we could boast to the whole world that we were able to remove a very powerful dictator from Malacañang. Now, we cannot even oust a President with no mandate.

Are we an accursed people? Is it karma? Have we broken some cosmic law?

But former President Corazon Aquino could have unwittingly provided the answer when she bravely and humbly enough admitted that she regretted her role in helping Ms Arroyo grab power from President Joseph Estrada.
You regret a mistake. Could we have made a mistake in ousting a very popular, duly elected President?

Maybe, there is some truth to the claim of Ms Arroyo that God Himself put her in power, but not in the sense of the divine right of kings (or queens) as she may have deluded herself into believing, but as our punishment for defying His voice in the voice of the people.

The removal of a duly elected president is clearly prescribed in the Constitution. Unlike Ms Arroyo, President Estrada submitted himself to the impeachment process. That it was aborted was no fault of his. That it was aborted was no reason to strip him of his immunity.

No president in his right mind will voluntarily resign.

The more than 10 million voters who elected him to serve for a term of six years can never understand the so-called "constructive resignation." Neither will they comprehend how a constitutional warp was created to accede to the demand of the beso-beso crowd who, in a fit of self-righteous indignation upon seeing the ledger of Chavit Singson, strengthened by the betrayal of Angelo Reyes, removed Erap and installed Ms Arroyo. And if we are to believe what is slowly being revealed in the Senate hearings, she will make him look like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

When we took mug shots of Erap and fingerprinted him like a common criminal, that was not just lese majestè, that was trampling upon the sovereign will of the people.

Maybe, this is why the anti-Arroyo groups have failed this far to get the support of the so-called "critical mass." Why should the masa risk being truncheoned and water-cannoned to support those who betrayed them? Erap may be a scoundrel in our eyes, but he is their scoundrel. And they are the majority.

But they will surely have the answer to the question that we can't seem to find the answer to: sinong papalit?
They will demand that we follow the Constitution and the rule of law, they will demand that we rewind the constitutional clock and reinstate the President they voted for, who to this day has not been pronounced guilty of the charges leveled against him. Perhaps, only then will they go to the streets.

More than the rule of law, that is poetic justice.

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