Regaining lost territory - FROM A DISTANCE BY Carmen N. Pedrosa

Hong Kong – It is good to be away for a while. The impeachment trial of Erap was reaching fever-pitch level, there was a danger, to me at least, of losing perspective. That would be unfortunate. Like watching a good tennis match, one can get caught in the dynamics of the play and forget that it is only a game. That was what happened last Friday. The proceedings on whether or not a surprise witness, Clarissa Ocampo, would be allowed to testify was a heart-stopping spectacle for millions of television watchers. The prosecutors, private lawyers, congressmen were seen as heroes, friends who had to be egged on to do better. Please, please naman, save Clarissa. The defense lawyers and the senators-judges were seen as enemies, ogres all, out to stop the comely witness from giving her testimony. As for the presiding judge, he may be good but last Friday he overplayed his impartiality. He was wrong to rule that the burden of proof on Erap’s unexplained wealth was on the prosecution. The law, Republic Act No. 1379, on the wealth of public officials acquired during their incumbency is very clear on that. "Whenever any public officer or employee has acquired during his incumbency an amount of property which is manifestly out of proportion to his salary as such public officer or employee and to his other lawful income and the income from legitimately acquired property, said property shall be presumed prima facie to have been unlawfully acquired."

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Justice Hilario Davide, Jr acted like a referee rather than as a judge last Friday. How could he have forgotten the law? How could he have forgotten that the prosecutors-congressmen merely represent the people, the true complainants in this case. He allowed himself to be caught in the courtroom drama rather than keep the wider perspective outside that courtroom. I’d like to believe that it was his determination to be impartial that may have misled him. Acting as referee in a game, and confronted with the unquestionable advantage that Clarissa Ocampo’s testimony had given to the prosecution, the presiding judge, playing his role to the hilt, ruled to return the trial back to an even keel. Had he not ruled in the manner he did, the rest of the trial, like the game it was perceived to be, would have been deemed finished right then and there. It was the way the presiding judge stayed the victory of the prosecution. The long holiday break will be the much needed breathing spell so all the players in the court drama will have the opportunity to view the impeachment trial from a distance. From a distance, the players may re-learn that the question the court is trying to resolve is about Erap’s fitness to govern as president of the Philippines. If the court is to follow the spirit of the Constitution on the impeachment of public officials, especially of the President, it must see that the issue is not so much about his individual acts but the whole character of his governance. Certainly, Friday’s proceedings left no doubt that his continuing governance is now in question.

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Withdrawing the mandate from an elected leader who failed us is about regaining lost territory. This column has said more than once that Erap’s removal from office is but one aspect of the impeachment proceeding. Another important result of the impeachment trial would be an opportunity for the renewal of the Filipino nation. That renewal is only possible if Filipinos understood their role as sovereign citizens. While Erap’s unfitness to be president of the country is under scrutiny, Filipinos are awakening to their role as sovereign citizens. That process is more encompassing and cannot be contained in a courtroom. No matter the high drama of the television proceedings, Filipinos must see that it is what they do after the trial that will bear watching. That resolve is strengthened with less emotion. It is the prose that Stanley Karnow was looking forward to after the poetry of the first EDSA. If revolutions lend themselves to poetry, routine daily life does not. It does not have the glamor and excitement of revolutions or courtroom drama. It is about the drudge of routine governance and it involves both citizens and leaders. If the first EDSA failed us in our search for good governance, we are given a second chance with Erap’s impeachment. Each day we must resolve not to lose sight of that grand picture, the dream paved for us by the great heroes of our history’s wars of independence. This is the time, when we are close to victory, that we should keep in mind that the political crisis is more about ourselves and what we failed to do as sovereign citizens than it is about Erap and other erring officials. Through the years we let that sovereignty slip from our hands. We lost that space which would have ensured a better life for our nation by our negligence and our unwillingness to act until today.

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Where were you when Clarissa Ocampo testified? I was at home writing my column. But like others who watched the impeachment proceedings on television I was so transfixed during the critical moments when it was unclear whether the surprise witness would make it to the stand to testify. Those moments were so charged, I was not able to think of anything else. Like others, I was cheering and jeering with the volley of exchange between the prosecution and defense, I would not have missed how it was going to be resolved, I did not even stop to eat dinner. It was gripping drama. All this is by way of apology for not coming out with a column last Saturday.

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Text messages as portents. Here in Hong Kong, we were not exempted from watching Erap’s impeachment. My sister who was with me received a text message on her cellphone which said there were confirmed reports that there were standby airplanes to bring Erap & Co. to exile, possibly in Nauru. The sender was not anonymous but a politically perceptive friend. She was passing the message as told by the previous sender. I thought it was very much like the first report on the departure of the Marcoses during EDSA I which later turned out to be a dud. Text messages are not necessarily announcements of fact; they are more like portents of things to come. Erap’s families and friends should tell him it is time to go. Whatever January 2 will bring, it will not save his presidency. The most he can hope for is a reprieve but a reprieve will only bring an even graver crisis that will cost not only him and his loved ones dearly but the rest of the country. Marcos, for all that he was, saw the danger of a cataclysm if he persisted in hanging on. Erap must be made to see the cost both to himself and the country if he persists on staying on.

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Erap’s impeachment is the trial Marcos never had. Many years from now, historians will write on how the televised impeachment proceedings against Erap changed us all. It is not as if this is the first time we have known about graft in government or officials who filch public money to support mistresses they can ill afford or connivance between banks and corrupt officials. We know that and we would have continued to live with government corruption as we have had before Erap’s time. Government corruption was something we talked about, confined to backrooms and taken for granted. There was no collective accounting such as the impeachment of Erap forced us to do. Only now do we see its ugliness and how it deprives us all. We had an earlier opportunity to change during Marcos’ ouster in EDSA 1986. But we botched it. In a way Erap’s impeachment proceeding is the trial that the Marcoses never had. Their trial was done in New York away from the full view of Filipinos such as we now have with Erap’s impeachment. Each day that we articulate Erap’s corruption and the heroism of ordinary citizens like Emma Lim and Clarissa Ocampo, we are changed more than we will ever know. This time we must resolve to translate the lessons we learn into institutions through which we can express our revulsion against corruption in government. It remains the task at hand. Like all duties it will not be easy, yet we have no choice but to face it.

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