Estrada’s party condemns picket vs Miriam

The Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) appealed for sobriety yesterday even as it condemned the lightning rally in front of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s Quezon City home last Friday morning.

"We would like to renew our call to the opposition to respect the Constitution and let the impeachment process run its full course under a free and fair atmosphere," the PMP, President Estrada’s party, said in a press statement.

The PMP made the appeal after Santiago on Friday asked the Estrada impeachment tribunal to cite for indirect contempt of court anti-Estrada rallyists who picketed her home on No. 29 Maalindog st., UP Village, Quezon City.

Santiago said the rallyists banged on the gate of her residence and peppered its premises with garbage.

Describing the rallyists as "psychologically disturbed," Santiago said the rally was staged to force and intimidate her to render a vote of conviction in President Estrada’s ongoing impeachment trial.

"Let us not rush headlong into doing things that could ignite anarchy. We may be in a political crisis but the differences in our political views do not warrant an internecine conflict. This political crisis is tragedy enough for our people. Let us not aggravate this by leading our nation into a civil war," the PMP said in its statement.

"Ours is democratic system of government," the PMP added. "We elect our leaders ... And if we have to remove them before their terms end, there are enough laws to guide and follow. These laws are founded on established, age-old and proven universal principles of justice. To disregard them is to open the floodgates of civil anarchy."

Akbayan Action Party admitted that 30 of its members staged the lightning rally but described the rally as an "orderly and non-violent picket to demonstrate our sentiments against her (Santiago’s) obvious bias for the President in the impeachment trial."

But Santiago denounced the rally as "improper conduct tending directly or indirectly to impede, obstruct or degrade the administration of justice."

She accused the rallyists of violating her right to peace and privacy in her own house and constituting nuisance to the entire neighborhood within her community.

"My two four-year-old daughters were so startled by their loud and angry chanting that the two girls ran to me in panic and burst into tears," Santiago said.

She said she ordered her security guards not to take any action against the rallyists but called on barangay officials to ask the rallyists to disperse due to a supposed absence of a rally permit.

In response to her appeal that the impeachment tribunal cite the rallyists for contempt, Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., presiding officer of the tribunal, urged the Senate to hold an executive session to discuss possible action against the rallyists.