Recipe for anarchy

So who first spliced, or digitally altered, or edited the "Hello Garci" tapes? There are several suspects:

• Lawyer Alan Paguia, who added a voiceover to the recordings he presented to Congress.

• Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye, who presented to the press two CDs, one of which he claimed had been altered.

• Environment Secretary Michael Defensor, who sent CDs to a voice-recording expert in the United States for authentication.

• Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who sent his copies of the recordings to experts in Australia for authentication.

• The other characters in this drama, among them former National Bureau of Investigation official Samuel Ong or his source in the intelligence community who gave him what he claimed were the master tapes of the wiretapped conversations.

• The folks themselves who tapped the conversations, with the suspicion focused on the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, who look like they were caught in a government-sanctioned electronic surveillance operation that went badly awry.

We may never know who tapped whom, or who spliced which version of the recordings. But we can determine if the tapes, obviously obtained illegally, can be admissible as evidence in impeachment proceedings.

The question of the admissibility of the tapes as evidence cannot simply be brushed aside as an effort to bury the truth and save Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It will have to be answered, just as we need to establish whether several impeachment complaints can be filed separately against the same person and then amended and consolidated within a year.

These are legitimate questions, and the way we answer them will set precedents for the rule of law in our chaotic land.

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I’m surprised that Filipinos are putting so much faith this time in the rule of law, withholding judgment until truth — some version of it anyway — prevails. This works in favor of President Arroyo, of course, but she’s simply enjoying a reprieve. I don’t think people would mind seeing her step down if her opponents present damning evidence against her in the course of a constitutional process such as impeachment.

A president, however, could survive impeachment, and there are Filipinos who are also ready to accept that possibility if the opposition bungles its case.

Bungling includes trying to railroad the impeachment and sweeping all legitimate questions under the rug.

So many accusations have been hurled against the President and her relatives in connection with the jueteng controversy alone, so the opposition should not be scared of confronting questions about the admissibility of wiretapped conversations as evidence in an impeachment. Several respected constitutional experts have argued that national interest can trump the right to privacy in this case. All we need is a definitive ruling.

Members of the House of Representatives must also settle once and for all their rules — whether "creeping" impeachment is allowed, and whether a complaint, once filed, can still be amended or consolidated with new ones.

If it can be amended, is there a deadline for making amendments, or can Ping Lacson keep presenting more witnesses to the press in the course of the House impeachment deliberations, adding more accusations to the growing pile until the case goes to the Senate?

That looks like a recipe for anarchy, and someone must impose order in this most serious business of impeachment. Otherwise we will see more of this kind of clumsy, disorderly effort to unseat impeachable officials, and the House can no longer invoke rules that it cannot enforce.

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Impeachment is never an easy process, and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the reason for this. If the process is made easy, Congress will be swamped with frivolous complaints, filed by every publicity-hungry lawyer or politician, a losing bidder in a fat government contract, or some other individual with an ax to grind against the subject of the complaint.

If congressmen do not keep a tight grip on their rules, they will end up entertaining each one of those frivolous complaints, leaving little time for their numerous congressional breaks because they might have to keep holding special sessions to tackle serious legislative business.

This is why questions on procedural rules should not be taken lightly and dismissed merely as efforts to suppress the truth about presidential wrongdoing.

We’ve already seen the wages of lousy rule enforcement. In the previous administration, the House used creeping impeachment to fast-track the forwarding of the complaint against Joseph Estrada to the Senate. No one questioned the violation of House rules at the time, so now the opposition naturally wants to do the same.

If questions about the use of illegally obtained recordings as evidence are brushed aside, we are sure to see more cases in the future where complainants will be brandishing as evidence CDs and tapes of illegally tapped conversations not just in impeachment proceedings but also in ordinary criminal cases.

We don’t even know yet who taped the "Hello Garci" conversations; whoever did it violated laws against wiretapping and must be prosecuted and penalized, just as anyone involved in vote rigging and corruption must be punished.

No one, however, seems to have the time or the interest to pursue such minor details at this point. The singular objective at this time is to kick out the President, using recordings that were obviously obtained illegally and whose contents might have been altered.

Failing in that, the opposition hopes to bring down the President on allegations of corruption involving jueteng payoffs. They might have better luck with this one, if they can get their act together.

It’s not just taped conversations that are spliced together in our despairing land. Even laws are cut and pasted together to suit individual needs, then enforced in ad hoc fashion. Cases are adjudicated in a similar way.

If there had not been a stampede among politicians and lawyers to grab the limelight and take credit for bringing down yet another president, a better impeachment case could have been prepared, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could have been brought down faster and easier.

In kicking out a president, her enemies must avoid further weakening the rule of law. President Arroyo might be booted out, but it cannot be in a way that is so messy we are going to regret for the next 20 years that we have set another precedent for anarchy.