Muckraking in a mock court

Malacañang officials call the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA), dubbed as the "people’s court," as nothing but a "kangaroo court."

This court was named after a plant-eating mammal native to Australia, New Guinea and its neighboring islands, because it has a justice system that leaps and bounds like a kangaroo. My uncle Webster defines "kangaroo court" as a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded and perverted; one involving comic procedures and ludicrous penalties designed for the amusement of the participants and spectators.

A kangaroo is an animal that is a herbivorous, leaping marsupial mammal (family Macropodidae) that has a small head, large ears, long powerful hind legs, a long thick tail used as a support and in balancing and rather small forelegs not used in progression.

Don’t look now but this is not by way of describing the people who compose this CCTA just because the Palace derisively calls it as "kangaroo court." Arroyo administration officials fumed this "people’s court" is the same as the "kangaroo courts" run by the communist insurgents where the prosecutor, judge, and executioner are rolled into one.

The CCTA, presided over by former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, announced earlier that they will start next week their public trial of the various graft and corruption charges, including the "lying, cheating, and stealing" allegations, against President Arroyo, the very same articles of impeachment that were "killed" by pro-administration House solons last September.

At the "people’s court," Guingona is set to reprise his role in the impeachment trial of deposed President Joseph Estrada after his "I accuse" privilege speech at the Senate where he subsequently sat as one of the Senator-jurors. And the rest, as they say, is history when Guingona et.al. joined the January 2001 EDSA-2 People Power Revolution that drove Estrada out of the Palace.

But while senior Palace officials denigrate the CCTA as a "kangaroo court," here comes Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Michael "Mike" Defensor stepping forward to reiterate his desire and willingness to appear and testify before this body.

Nobody paid attention to Defensor when he first announced his planned appearance at the CCTA while he was with President Arroyo in Cebu last week. This was a day after the infamous serving of the CCTA subpoena on President Arroyo at Mendiola that was received but torn up by a minor functionary of the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) who earned his one-minute fame in local and international media last Oct. 26.

By the way, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye told me yesterday there is no truth to rumors that Emiterio "Emi" Magdangal, executive assistant III, the diminutive, balding Palace functionary mistakenly identified as an assistant secretary, who received but tore up that CCTA subpoena for GMA, will be rewarded by an official promotion to this rank under his soon-to-be created Presidential Communications Group.

Defensor reiterated in subsequent radio and television talk show interviews his challenge for the CCTA to summon him to testify, especially in the alleged "cheating, lying and stealing" charges against Mrs. Arroyo. If there is anyone who can personally testify and defend the President on these election-related charges, Defensor cited and offered himself to do it because he was the official campaign spokesman and campaign manager of Mrs. Arroyo during the May 2004 presidential elections.

If the Palace refers to the CCTA as a "kangaroo court," then, that would make Defensor a "joey" if he participates in this mock court.

I ribbed Defensor about this and he laughed, but I detected he first didn’t quite get my joke. A "joey" is the young kangaroo that sits in its mother’s pouch.

The 36-year old Defensor though has a valid concern that while the CCTA is a joke in itself as a mock court, its serious allegations and muckraking will enjoy wide media coverage and find its way into the public’s awareness and subconscious without any clear explanations or defense from the President as the accused in this "people’s court."

Counsel from much older and wiser Cabinet colleagues, led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, apparently prevailed upon the DENR Secretary, as the Palace issued an official statement yesterday that Defensor will no longer dignify the CCTA with his presence nor his testimony. Instead, Ermita quoted Defensor as telling him he would send a representative to do this task for him.

Defensor is one of the most trusted lieutenants in the inner circle of Mrs. Arroyo. He has demonstrated his zealous loyalty to the President to the point of coming up with his own US expert’s assessment of the supposed tampered "Hello Garci" wiretapped telephone conversations. It almost blew up in Defensor’s face when one of the audio experts he presented included a discredited Jonathan Tiongco. Defensor took it upon himself to wage an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth battle for the hearts and minds of the public against the opposition’s parade of witnesses and evidence on Mrs. Arroyo.

This was during the height of the opposition’s presentation in the media and in Congressional public hearings of self-confessed witnesses in the alleged jueteng and election cheating activities who linked the President and her husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and eldest son, Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo.

Remember also the Udong Mahusay caper of Defensor in his celebrated "rescue" of the former aide of the First Gentleman who squealed on the "Jose Pidal" bank account to opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Defensor is one brave warrior of Mrs. Arroyo and how I wish his devotion to her is worth the risks he has been taking in her defense while doing his main job in the Cabinet. As DENR Secretary, his principal mandate is to protect "mother nature," the flora and fauna in the country. Fortunately, the kangaroo is one marsupial we don’t have in the Philippines.

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