Unforgettable, maybe, but inevitable?

There is a school of thought which claims that President GMA’s downfall is inevitable, if not exactly imminent. This inevitability school says that it’s not a matter of if, but when. Naturally, this kind of thinking drives her supporters up a wall.

Senate minority leader Nene Pimentel seems to reflect the opposition’s conviction when he insists, "The end is not near. The end is here." Some in the business community, probably aligned with the Makati Business Club faction that issued the GMA-resign call recently, claim that the most important thing to business is that the crisis be resolved sooner rather than later. This group apparently believes that impeachment will not result in that immediate resolution and that only her resignation, ASAP!, will.

Hate to disappoint these diehards, but it doesn’t look like resignation is in the cards, now or anytime soon. For better or worse, GMA seems to have firmed up her fortress defenses and is hankering down for a long siege, with a couple of sorties and preemptive ambuscades from the bunker thrown in to keep the enemy off balance. For some reason, she has difficulty convincing some people of this resolve.

The battle plans are largely complete, including a brand-new communications program which, yet again, will try to "soften" her image. With the departure of Silvestre Afable as communications director, a new crew will be on board shortly to implement the new program, part of which was proposed by former campaign stalwart and now Asian Development Bank Alternate Director Mai Jimenez. Although Afable has resigned as C.D., his departure was reportedly, well, affable and he is remaining as peace negotiator.

It appears the House is gearing up for the impeachment process which, at the very least, will take up a few months of the legislature’s time. The outcome of that process is, of course, uncertain. This early, though, the members of the opposition prosecution claim to be pessimistic about the prospects of a conviction. Many suspect, however, that, in fact, the opposition is salivating at this opportunity to go against GMA.

The impeachment is bound to go into areas other than the offenses specified in the bill of particulars sent to the Senate. Using the Erap impeachment trial as a precedent, particularly the arguments leading up to the controversial vote on the Second Envelope, the prosecution will insist that even matters not included in the bill of particulars can be looked into, if they turn up later.

But whatever way the impeachment goes, and regardless of how long it takes, I continue to maintain that we should take that hard road. Enough of this talk about extra-constitutional methods, even if they are supposedly not unconstitutional. Enough of these fake demonstrations by both sides, which are costing somebody or some persons a lot of money. Neither, no matter how numerous the hakots, serves to enhance the debate or illuminate the issues.

We have had our fill of dueling calls or endorsements from warring factions within the same organizations or from different groups within the same sector. All these competing calls are accomplishing is filling the coffers of broadsheets with their paid ads, which isn’t all that bad for us in media, come to think of it.

In addition, they let people see that even in "civic" and professional organizations, which ostensibly are above politics and self-interest, it’s politics as usual and often for the wrong reasons. The distrust for institutions in this country, so pervasive in the case of institutions of government, has clearly infected even non-governmental organizations. The division within the Church, while played down because of the apparent primacy of the statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, can still be seen in the actions of some individual clergy who hold on to their own opinions about GMA and do not hesitate to talk publicly about it or engage in their own manifestations of protest.

In short, to reiterate previous assessments in this column, our society is in a hopeless and seemingly unbreakable stalemate. Some now argue that this stalemate is in itself dangerous because it spells indeterminable delay in the ultimate resolution of the crisis. The longer the crisis lingers, the worse it gets and the larger toll it takes on our political stability and economic recovery. The worse it gets too for our poor, for whom no social programs can be put firmly in place.

The corollary of this argument, unfortunately, is that the fastest way to end the crisis is for GMA to resign immediately. I will admit there is some attractiveness to this approach, especially for those who crave surcease and who harbor mortal fears about what a future of unremitting crises holds for us. However, under current conditions, a resignation would open up more problems than it would solve.

In the first place, I find it fundamentally unacceptable that a President is hounded out of office, after having been duly elected, because of the decibel level of protesters, by opinion surveys or by unverified evidence which is allegedly "believed by most people." It seems to me this is not too far from saying that after an election, if a President is disliked by most people, even if for good reason, he or she can be removed from office.

Now I realize that many are impatient with lawyers and legislators who insist on observing the law and the Constitution. But if we were to listen to that familiar complaint, we might as well forget law and Constitutional process and just set up vigilante squads and leave alleged criminals to lynch mobs.

I know too that many people, particularly those disenchanted with our ponderous and clearly unequal legal system, would agree with that magic formula for swift and certain justice. In real life, though, it’s a lot more complicated than this. Abuses and injustice are more likely in a mob-style enforcement of law.

In the long run, a patient but no-nonsense implementation of the prescribed process is what we need to go through. For the first time in our history, our vaunted respect for law and abhorrence for short-cuts, should be substantiated by a full and complete observance of the impeachment process. If we find defects in the system, there is a legal way to make corrections too. But as long as the system is in place, we should respect it.

So, forget Frank Sinatra. The end may not be near and I’m not sure anyone faces the final curtain, even if you insist on doing it your way.