The 2nd Impeachment

On the first working day after the great flood that sank 80 percent of Metro Manila, the House of Representatives rested. Speaker Prospero Nograles ordered the session cancelled supposedly to allow House members to attend to the needs of their constituents affected by the floods, although everyone knew that the devastation was confined largely to Metro Manila and a few places in Central Luzon. Apparently he couldn’t see any urgency in asking Congress to help find ways of bringing immediate relief to the tens of thousands affected by storm “Ondoy” by, say, passing a supplemental budget to replenish the Calamity Fund that some people suspect to have been depleted by the diversion of money to finance the frequent foreign travels of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The victims could always wait another day; the House has other priorities.

The next day, some congressmen showed where their priorities lie. With the massive cleanup of the metropolis in full swing, they did some cleaning up of their own. By a vote of 37-5, the justice committee cleared Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez of all her alleged offenses that her accusers said constituted clear grounds for her impeachment.

In March this year, a group of lawyers and civil society leaders, led by former Senate President Jovito Salonga, accused Gutierrez of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution and sought her impeachment. Among the grounds cited by the group were: Gutierrez’s failure to carry out the Supreme Court’s order to prosecute those involved in the poll automation contract between the Commission on Elections and MegaPacific that the Court voided; her “gross inexcusable inaction” on the P728-million fertilizer scam; the late filing of defective information that undermined the bribery case against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez; and her “deliberate and inordinate inaction” on the collusion and corruption attending the bidding for road projects financed by the World Bank.

Despite all the documents supporting these cases and despite the wide media coverage of the scandals, the members of the justice committee found not one single complaint meritorious. Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan, who summed up the committee’s decision, said the charges against Gutierrez were “premature, mere speculations, conjectures and innuendoes which do not pass the test of substance.” Another congressman said some of the charges, like those pertaining to the MegaPacific scam and the Perez bribery case, were related to cases that were pending in the courts and covered by the sub judice rule.

The rejection of the impeachment complaint, frustrating and maddening though it may be, no longer surprises. After all this is the same House that has dismissed four successive impeachment complaints against President Macapagal-Arroyo, without making any serious attempt to examine their merits. This is a House where politics trumps everything. The day First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo came to the defense of Gutierrez and ordered congressmen to “just let her alone, leave her alone,” the ombudsman was free as a bird. The lawmakers belonging to the majority coalition know who is the boss.

As in all the impeachment complaints against the President, this was nothing but a numbers game, as the House majority would candidly—and shamelessly—admit. In the view of most congressmen, impeachment is not about making sure that select officials perform their duties, remain faithful to their oath and follow the law. And it is not about removing those who don’t. It is all about choosing the right side, meaning the bigger side. And once an impeachable official picks the “right” side, he can do all the wrong things and refuse to do the right ones without fear of losing his office. Which makes one wonder why it is written in the Constitution at all.

Will our congressmen ever see the need to discipline officials who betray the public trust by breaking their oath of office? Apparently not the unthinking bunch that constitute the majority in the House justice committee. The people they represent would do the nation as well as themselves a big favor by voting for somebody else in next year’s elections.