Averting impeachment, avoiding responsibility
GOTCHA
By Jarius Bondoc
September 1, 2008
“Is that your final answer?” a senator had to ask, a la Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. So vexing was Malacañang’s latest flip-flop on the Memo of Agreement-Ancestral Domain. If Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera is to be believed, President Arroyo never saw the document that would’ve ceded territory to Moro separatists. Moreover, Arroyo’s peace negotiators with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were about to sign it although she had given no authority to do so.
Devanadera’s final answer came on the third week of Supreme Court debates on the MOA’s legality. Before that the Palace had fumbled to justify its concessions to rebels who were then pillaging a dozen barrios. The MOA stunk worse than the $329 million ZTE, P728 million fertilizer and P2 billion swine scams. So spin-doctors came up with lie after lie to pull Arroyo away from public ire. Initial pretexts ranged from the MOA being just a draft to its likely junking, then from subjecting it to review to its being an unofficial version after all. Devanadera’s new line makes a fool of Executive Sec. Ed Ermita. The latter has been insisting that, not to worry, Malacañang will restudy the MOA in view of the Court’s temporary restraining order. Now the Sol-Gen is saying that whatever the verdict, the Palace will not sign it “in its present form or in any other form.”
Malacañang must be sensing defeat. Although 13 of the 15 justices are Arroyo appointees, their questioning of its actions has been revealingly harsh. Five even stated pointblank that it’s patently unconstitutional for the executive to delegate sovereign powers to the MILF. An adverse ruling on the MOA would open Arroyo to her fourth impeachment rap in as many years — for culpable violation of the Constitution. By claiming that the Palace won’t be signing anymore, Devanadera is forestalling charges at the House of Reps in Oct., when the one-impeachment-a-year limit lapses.
Devanadera’s plot has many loose ends. For one, the President-was-never-informed line is incredible. Arroyo’s State of the Nation only last July had bragged of an impending breakthrough in talks to end the 35-year Moro secession; meaning, she was being told of developments at the negotiation table. Also, the Philippine and Malaysian foreign ministers and the US ambassador to Manila had been invited to witness the scheduled signing last Aug. 5 in Kuala Lumpur; meaning, again, that Malacañang was on top of it all.
There’s the possibility too of the-Palace-negotiators-went-overboard backfiring. Retired generals Rodolfo Garcia and Hermogenes Esperon may not agree to take the rap. If provoked, one of them might talk of Arroyo’s election rigging in 2004.
Still, Malacañang has a good cleanup team. The President has charms to induce political suicide in exchange for faraway diplomatic posting. Impeachment can be easily quashed too. All Arroyo has to do is to promise to release congressmen’s pork barrels on the day of the voting.
In its rush to clear the President and pin blame on subs, the Palace is forgetting something: the damage that the MOA has wrought. As Sen. Mar Roxas challenged Arroyo in a newspaper ad: “Accept responsibility. Admit your blunders. It has cost the lives of countless Filipinos, ruined livelihoods and ripped communities apart. Speak the truth. Stop the doubletalk.”
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Is the justice department sitting on a fraud case against a pre-need firm because its directors are related to the First Couple? Let’s hope not. But pre-need plan holders are beginning to suspect that influence peddling is foiling their bid to recover P68 million from the well-connected company.
The plan holders initially had won a ruling to be paid P68 million. The losing firm appealed, and the prosecutor reversed himself. The plan holders brought the matter to the office of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez. Their petition has been gathering dust for the past five months. This, in spite of a law to at least inform parties within 15 days upon query on the status of their case.
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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com