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By Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino, Dean,
Graduate School of Law, San Beda College (Mendiola)
I AM not an apologist for President Arroyo. I
have received no favors from her. I believe that she is a competent
president and I also believe in the Rule of Law, no matter that the
law may, in several respects, be infirm. And by the precepts of the
Rule of Law to which I adhere, pressuring the President into
resigning by swaying public opinion away from her and alienating the
allegiance of the military is anathema. My own reflections on the
moral dimensions of the problems confirm me in the legal position I
have so far taken.
1. I have followed with keen attention the
proceedings in the Senate. Joey de Venecia’s testimony clearly
implicates the First Gentleman. Under the current legal doctrine of
individual responsibility, there is no justification to impute to
the President whatever wrong-doings the First Gentleman may be
guilty of. I am not yet conceding that he is guilty.
2. The testimony of Lozada, while rich in many
details, contains not a single incriminatory statement against the
President. There are innuendos that the deal was known to , if not
brokered, by some Malacañang personalities, but innuendo is never
evidence, and when we take so a serious move as urging the people to
press for the resignation of the President, such a call must, by all
moral precepts, rest on moral certitude!
3. Much of the testimony of Lozada in the Senate
would fail the test of judicial admissibility. The Senate does not
adhere to the Rules of Evidence. It is not required to because its
task is not judicial.
4. The Senators are not the impartial
investigators and judges that judicial proceedings call for. Most of
the Senators are political adversaries of PGMA. The witness
answers as he is led by the questions. In court, most o these
questions are characterized as “leading,” and are
disallowed in direct examinations because they lead the witness to
the kind of answer the proponent of the question—in this case, the
senators—wish to elicit from the witness.
5. Section 15 (1) of Republic Act 6770 vests in
the Ombudsman the power to investigate “any public officer of
employee, office or agency” when an act or omission
complained of appears to be illegal or even merely improper. I do
not read, nor is there reason to read, the exclusion of the
President from the power of the Ombudsman to investigate. Section 22
is in fact express about its power to investigate impeachable
officials. I would like to hear the Ombudsman tell us whether or not
there is probable cause in the first place because this, the Senate
of its own cannot determine, nor does it possess the power to do so!
6. What shocks me is the irresponsibility with
which a lawyer and a Senator of the Republic should prejudice the
Ombudsman and dissuade the public from lending credence to the
Ombudsman. Why should he? The reason is not too difficult to fathom:
Since this particular senator has always wanted the President
ousted, he wants public attention focused on the Senate, majority of
whose members are having a heyday with the investigations at which
they get the chance to bash the President. Proceedings before the
Ombudsman should be more sedate, more orderly, more rational.
7. The contention that the Ombudsman and the DOJ
Secretary cannot conduct credible investigations because they are
presidential appointees is specious! Were that so, the Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court, the associate justices of the High Court, the
justices of all superior courts, judges of courts, members of the
Constitutional Commissions—all would lack credibility because all
are presidential appointees. Is it then our sad fate in this
blighted Republic that only the Senators are to be trusted? All the
clowning that has taken place in the Senate thus far convinces me
otherwise: That it is one of the least credible institutions in this
country.
8. Is it really the truth we seek? I have the
sickening feeling that the President’s foes have already decided
what the “truth” is—that she is guilty. If the Ombudsman were
to find no probable cause against the President nor reason to indict
the President in the Lower House (that is tasked with filing the
articles of impeachment) after a thorough investigation, would the
members of the opposition and the media be willing to accept this as
“true”? I have my serious doubts. But that is exactly the
trouble: If they have decided before hand what “true” is, then
all investigations are unavailing.
9. When one protests his earnestness in search
of the truth and at the same time presses for the resignation of the
President, one is guilty of a “performative contradiction.” If
you search for the truth, you do not yet know whether or not she is
guilty. But if you do not know this yet, what reason is there to ask
her to resign?
10. Asking for the President’s resignation
gives now the military the signal to shift allegiances: From
following the chain of command to breaking it. I find pathetic and
ludicrous Jose Ma. Sison’s call to the military to shift
allegiances.
11. When did all these coup attempts disruptive
of civil government start? They all started with the politicization
of the military. While we lauded their role in the first EDSA People
Power revolution, we also opened a Pandora’s Box—the ugly
prospect of the military dictating upon civilian government and
making the latter hostage to it. How shall we ever have a government
that truly subjects military authority to civilian rule if we court
military support for the ouster of civilian government?
11. The two EDSA People Power exercises we have
gone through got us the results we wanted THEN—the ouster of
Marcos, the ouster of Erap. But have these resulted in the
strengthening of democratic institutions? They definitely have not.
And when the institutions of democracy and justice are weakened by
extra-systemic measures like people power, snap elections,
pre-mature departures from office of duly constituted
authorities we deter the maturing of our democracy.
12. It has been repeatedly argued that the
President’s resignation is not unconstitutional. But forcing her
to by inviting the military for example to disavow obedience to
their Commander-in-Chief and the civilian population not to submit
to authority is certainly unconstitutional.
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