Four out of four

EDITORIAL

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10/12/2008

If plans do not miscarry, the fourth impeachment complaint in as much as many straight years against Gloria, may prove to be the most serious and may have the biggest chance of pinning down the lady with the extremely overstretched luck.

The past two impeachment complaints, by lawyer Oliver Lozano in 2006 and lawyer Roel Pulido in 2007, were bogus impeach me moves thrown in to prevent a serious impeachment case from being filed against Gloria. Both miserably went down due to insufficient substance.

The one being filed over the weekend seems to have been mapped up strategically based on its filing alone.

It is being filed for three consecutive days: Yesterday, today and Monday to prevent Gloria’s minions from again beating the complainants made up mainly of lawyer Harry Roque, Joey de Venecia, cause-oriented groups and militant House Representatives to the draw.

It also seeks to plug the loophole on the exact date that the one-year prescription on the filing of an impeachment complaint after the last one lapses.

Several things are going with the new impeachment complaint that did not benefit its two predecessors. It is less than two years before the 2010 elections and politicians are becoming increasingly sensitive on how they look before their constituents.

Being lined up among those who will be identified in blocking the impeachment move would make every opponent of those legislators look good.

A serious complaint also will bring to light more substantive allegations that would take a major effort to scuttle right at the committee level.

The impeachment complaint will also be the first under the term of Speaker Prospero Nograles who will have to balance the interest of Gloria’s coalition allies and his own political image in his imminent task of having the complaint dismissed.

The wildcard in the coming days after the impeachment complaint is accepted in the House would be former Speaker Jose de Venecia, who remains to be neither here nor there in his political conviction.

After claiming in his parting shot of a speech, upon losing the Speakership to Nograles that he will bare many irregularities done by the Arroyo administration, JdV seems to have gone into another hibernation and is rarely seen and much less heard are his promised exposes.

His son, however, would be a signatory to the complaint that would make the latest complaint more compelling and interesting to follow in how it would wind down at the House.

After being a Speaker for a longer period than Gloria’s eight years of squatting in Malacañang, JdV’s clout or the lack of it would show when the complaint is subjected to a vote.

This early, even the Partylist representatives who will be endorsing the complaint have their hands up on its chances of being transmitted to the Senate that needs a vote of three fourths of the chamber.

With the eventual bags of goodies being distributed from Malacañang when deliberations on the complaint are in full bloom, the chances of impeaching Gloria remain slim.

The confluence of self interest in the run-up to the 2010 elections and maybe the latent clout of JdV may just lead to the springing of a surprise against Gloria.

It would be again the politics of number that will dictate the outcome of the complaint with the well-cared for allies of Gloria in Congress likely prevailing again.

Reason and justice would be far from the equation but still, as most of the personalities who are behind the latest impeachment move have said, the crux of the filing of the complaint is about baring for public notice the numerous excesses of Gloria and her cabal.

Gloria, like a bad weed, would be hard to uproot and efforts are rightly being focused on assuring that she is not inflicted perpetually on Filipinos.

The impeachment process, however, never proved its worth in constitutionally making Gloria account for her abuses.

Gloria, in fact, took over power in 2001 after torpedoing the impeachment process against former President Joseph Estrada and set in motion her planned coup d’etat, hatched a year before the actual ouster.

A karmic repeat of the 2001 power grab, thus, would not be remote.

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