Thursday, September 11, 2014

Malacañang trolls


By Rod Kapunan


The decision to junk the four impeachment complaints filed against the President who has been sporting the slogan of “tuwid na daan” as insufficient in substance did not come as a complete surprise.

The decision to trash was expected, much that nobody from among his minions would allow their boss to be held accountable for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and for graft and corruption. Those miserable, albeit wallowing, solons who premeditatedly and maliciously sought to dismiss the complaints lived up to their assigned task as faithful errand boys.

For their pathetic subservience, they effectively reduced themselves into brainless trolls whose decision would be without any legal implication, much more could be used as precedent that their self-righteous President would not later on be held accountable. Rather, their opprobrious act only serves as a reminder that it is their consistent conduct in acting as mercenaries that is destroying the very institution they are supposed to represent. In fact, the infamous decision has now become familiar, just as one could see the crimson color of bribery and corruption to defend their chief purser.

Everybody knows that in the previous infamous conduct of Congress, it was the strong lobby made by the Makati business tycoons that impeached President Joseph Estrada, the same method of bribing the members of Congress that thwarted attempts to impeach the now jailed former President Gloria Arroyo, the same bribe money that impeached and convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona, Jr.

As members of Congress would often insist, all that are being decided by them are political questions, and therefore would have nothing to do with the merit or even an iota of the case. Being callous and honed only to follow the direction where the compass is pointed, they have now been accustomed to voting on what would protect, if not advance, their political and material interest. They would not care less about public indignation, their interest, and their welfare. After all, only the perks that ooze from the benefactor of their office can do that, and the best insurance to keep the sluice gate open is to defend, right or wrong, the one now in Malacañang.

The giving of such high-sounding names as Committee on Justice, Senate Impeachment Court, etc., have become a farce because no amount of justice can be arrived at if what goads them to act is premised on political consideration. On that basis, one could tell that they are guided by the blinders of political loyalty to accept the dirty and nauseating game of horse trading of securing both the money and the power. In fact, none of them is interested in wanting to hammer out the truth to give justice to our people whose money was needlessly wasted to cement their loyalty.

That was proven on several cases ranging from the impeachment of the President to that of the Chief Justice. All that worked because bribe money served as the elixir to let that shoddy justice system work. The extensive use by President Aquino of the DAP and the PDAF has proven to be an effective aphrodisiac to keep intact his herded minions in Congress and in the Senate. Thus, judging on the basis of evidence as a legal procedure in arriving at justice, viz. in pointing to the guilt of the accused, has become a joke.

In fact, many of those miserable congressmen who voted to junk the impeachment complaint insulted themselves. Just like the rest of us, they know that the Supreme Court has already rendered two decisions declaring the practice of this pretending-to-be-honest government in using DAP and PDAF as unconstitutional. The only reason why the Supreme Court failed to indict him for malversation and bribery is because the issues raised before it was confined to the specific provision in the Constitution that was violated. But had the complaint been a criminal one, citing specific provisions of the Revised Penal Code that were violated, surely PNoy and his gang of hypocrites could have been easily dunked for bribery and malversation.

For their relentless vandalism of the Constitution, the members of Congress themselves are destroying their own credibility. They politicized everything, such that today our people have become so cynical about their government. Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are now looked down as parasites and bootlickers bowing down to the whims of an equally capricious and woefully mediocre President. Such is most distressing because it is not only our justice system that is being eroded, but that the practice has given way to the continued vandalism of the Constitution.

For that, we are all slowly witnessing the substitution of our democratic system with an even greedier oligarchy that treats the government as mere guardians of their economic interest, and the legalizer of things to allow them rake in more profit. Invariably, the chronic governmental malfunctioning is heightening the demand for political retribution and justice, with some even toying with the idea of carrying out reforms outside of the orthodoxies of constitutionalism.

Our people now realize it would be foolhardy and a waste of time to assume that the Committee on Justice would render justice to the Filipino people whose taxes were wasted and used to bribe their cohorts in Congress by a President who has appropriated the entire public fund as his own, and disposing them left and right as through he inherited the money from his parents. As some kind of political punks, they completely ignored the two decisions of the Supreme Court. If they were lazy enough to do their homework, they could have easily come out with a “cut and paste” method of getting a portion of the High Court’s decision declaring DAP and PDAF unconstitutional.

It is for this why many refuse to treat the Committee’s decision with such respect. This early, many are just biding their time to let the fellow finish his term. After that, the green light will give its go signal to file cases, and surely the cycle of vengeance will continue that we might just end up as the only country on the world that puts to jail our former presidents. Any attempt to use their decision in junking the complaints could equally be treated as mere scraps of paper. This explains why Speaker Belmonte and his gang of corrupt adulators are so frantic in wanting to amend the Constitution that deleted the immunity extended to the incumbent President because the mother thought her anointed successors would be saintly and holy not to commit the mundane crimes of bribery, graft and corruption and plunder.


rpkapunan@gmail.com

No comments: