IMPEACHMENT WITHOUT ILLUSIONS continuation

By Randy David

continuation from yesterday..

If our country were Japan or South Korea, where personal honor is still highly valued, Mrs. Arroyo would have long bowed out of power in shame for disgracing her office. She would have drunk poison, or thrown herself into the murky waters of the Pasig. If this Germany or Great Britain, where law and politics are taken seriously, the party in power would have instantly and decisively distanced itself from its discredited leader as an act of mortification if not of self-preservation. If this were the US, she would have been convicted for obstruction of justice on multiple counts, and hounded out of the presidency.

Our tragedy is that we are neither bound by traditional mores nor governed by the rule of law or the dynamics of a modern party system. We have a head of state who is impermeable to guilt or shame, but is not respectful either of the ethos of the law. We have no real political parties; only parties in name– paper organizations of perennially shifting alliances based on transient interests. They do not command nor expect any enduring loyalty from their members. And worse, our justice system is manipulable.

As both a political and legal process, the idea of impeachment is based on the notion of democratic politics as an ongoing debate between a dominant and an opposition party. Where political parties do not function as aggregations of collective interests, there cannot be a meaningful political opposition. This is the reason why in societies like ours the public is called upon to play a catalytic oppositional role that one does not find in mature democracies. This explains why social movements, NGOs, and popular coalitions of civil society have had to be at the forefront of the struggle to build a better nation. This, of course, has its downside. For as long as social movements are forced to perform the function of the opposition, I'm afraid we will continue to project the image of a society in a permanent state of mobilization. But how do we cure this image?

For the moment, however, we seem to have no choice but to play that role. Our people have become disenchanted not only with the administration but with the political opposition as well. That is why the question of alternatives won't go away. Our people have come to distrust not only the politicians in power but also those presently out of power. For this reason and many others, we should not wonder if they treat the impeachment process as though it were a useless exercise.

They see impeachment in exactly the same way columnist Boo Chanco imagines it in one of his recent columns–a process that only serves to fatten a bunch of greedy congressmen and local government officials. Boo's advice is that the impeachment idea ought to be dropped, "unless the House Opposition can gather more than enough sure votes for the impeachment of Ate Glue to progress," I find this kind of reasoning somewhat illogical, but I am sure it makes sense to a lot of people. Boo Chanco argues that the danger of being impeached has forced Gloria to make decisions that are useful to her political survival but detrimental to the nation's interests. The opposition, he says, must bow to political realities; if they do not have the numbers, they should give to Gloria the period of political calm she needs in order "to undo some of the things she did that are inimical to public welfare."

This kind of reasoning assumes that Mrs. Arroyo's controversial rise to the presidency in 2001 and her equally controversial bid to keep it in 2004 have not tied down her hands so completely that she could still actually govern well if only she is not distracted by her critics. It assumes, above all, a well-meaning and principled president. First, I think we all know that in both 2001 and 2004, Gloria accumulated enough political debts that she would likely need another lifetime to repay all of them. Today, the situation is such that the greatest threat to her remaining in power comes not from her political opponents, but from the very same people who have an intimate knowledge of what she did to become president. I do not think these people have been repaid, or if they have, it is likely that not all of them are happy with what they got, I think that if you asked many people to help you lie, cheat, and steal in the course of your rise to power–it would be next to impossible for you to have calm and peace of mind.

We have no choice but to pursue the impeachment cause regardless of whether we can muster the requisite votes at the House. Let me show you why we should pursue impeachment without any illusions.

1. First of all, to remain quiet is not an option. A quietist attitude rewards thieves, opportunists, and dishonest people. Democracy is anything but quiet. The day citizens shut up will be the day they lose their stakes in the nation. The well-documented findings and recommendations of the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability constitute a good beginning, and we can only be thankful for the painstaking work that went into the making of the CCTA Report. The findings should make everyone's blood boil.

2. Yet I also believe that our people are not ready for anything radical at this time. Out of exasperation, they may welcome a revolutionary government, but I am almost certain that if they were not part of it from the start, they would not have the energy to support or defend it. It will not take long before they start to question the basis of its authority, its legitimacy.

3. Our people are worried for their families. That is why, by the thousands everyday, they vote with their feet. They fail to see any hope of redemption for the country under any of the existing political leaders. They're skeptical of almost all our present leaders. We must persuade them that there is hope for the country, but we must remind them as well that hope can only be forged in acts of sustained resistance, Impeachment is an act of resistance, even if, in the context of the comprehensive failure of our social system, it seems such a mild response. It is at least a fitting response to the fraudulent ballgame that the Arroyo government has thrown at us–the so-called "People's Initiative" for Cha-cha. I've always believed that it is in the course of resistance that new leaders are born, new ideas are conceived, and new solidarities are formed.

4. Fourth, I believe the 2007 midterm election is unavoidable. It presents our people with an opportunity to see where their representatives stand on a crucial moral and political issue. They will be watching how they their congressmen will vote on the impeachment of the most unpopular president this country has ever had. We cannot ignore elections, no matter how meaningless they might seem to many of us.

In the years following the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, foreign observers ridiculed our people by calling us a nation of 65 million sheep ruled by two clever thieves. Our seeming patience with the Marcos conjugal dictatorship was inexplicable to foreigners. Marcos himself thought he could be president forever when he called for a snap election. We all knew he would rig the election, but for our people, it didn't matter. They would use the election to show how angry they were. Thus the snap election became the nursery of people power.

I think the situation today is not so different. As in 1985-1986, we may create the constituency for reform in the very process of opposing the existing government. We learn more about ourselves or what has become of us as we take our institutions seriously. I think we should begin to regard our actions as experiments–as attempts to find out something about ourselves. We hope to see the new leaders emerge from all corners of our country as we focus on the failings of the present leadership. The new impeachment complaint may be killed again by Mrs. Arroyo's technicians of opportunism even before it could be heard. If this happens and our people don't get angry, then maybe it's time to quit and have our heads examined. As I said, we can't even be sure that the voting at the House will be any different from the way it went last year. I have no illusions.

But if, perchance, we can persuade our people–especially the young–to once more take up the challenge of political involvement as we go through the process of explaining the case against Mrs. Arroyo, I think we shall have contributed to restoring our people's confidence in the nation as a whole. At no other time has this become more important. By the power of negative example, Mrs. Arroyo has done a lot to cultivate in our people not only an intense dislike for politics, but also a comprehensive distrust for government. If our nation is to survive in the long term, we must do what we can to help repair the damage that has been done. It is not going to be easy, it will take a while. But we must seize the initiative whenever it presents itself, and begin from there. I think the impeachment of an unworthy leader is always a correct starting point for a nation's political rebirth.

Thank you.