Indifferent

The second impeachment effort against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo seems incapable of getting off the ground. The harder the advocates of a second impeachment attempt try, the more they tend to antagonize their own flock.

Earlier this week, simmering tensions within opposition ranks threatened to boil over.

Rep. Imee Marcos accused House Minority leader Francis Escudero of "bullying" his colleagues into signing a new impeachment complaint no one seems to have seen yet. Imee had the misfortune of being treated heavy-handedly by her own allies.

During last year’s critical vote on the first impeachment complaint, Imee, for some strange reason, failed to materialize on the floor to cast a vote on the side of the minority. For that, she was penalized by her allies and stripped of key committee assignments.

Last week, Escudero was trying to talk up the second impeachment effort in the press. The effort to drum up public interest in this recycled venture suffered from utter lack of drama.

Although Rep. Ronaldo Zamora – the one tasked with crafting a new impeachment complaint – spoke of new charges and new pieces of evidence, it was obvious that the only possible new alteration in the prospective impeachment effort are the mixed reviews rendered by the Supreme Court on the constitutional issues provoked by the so-called "calibrated preemptive response" policy and an executive order requiring executive officials to seek presidential consent before appearing before congressional hearings.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of opposition congressmen began making strange noises.

Several of them announced they would actually sign the new impeachment complaint only after the required third of all House members have committed to the effort. Still others announced that a new impeachment complaint would be filed only after the required third of congressmen have signed.

What they seem to be signaling is that a new impeachment adventure is suffering from an overpowering lack of enthusiasm.

It has become a crusade without enough crusaders, a clarion call for a futile march.

Removing a sitting president by impeachment is, to state the obvious, an extraordinary political act. It requires an extraordinary political setting: a condition where the public is ready to accept yet another blow to the regularity of our institutions in order to evict an elected leader.

Impeachment is not without hazards. It creates a political vacuum and opens all sorts of uncertainties. Those uncertainties will penalize our economy and darken prospects for prosperity. Displacement of a sitting leader will produce a vacuum that might not necessarily be filled by the intended beneficiary. It could open a period of political turbulence whose length is undeterminable.

In a word, impeachment cannot be a toy for partisan entertainment. The well-being of the entire community could be put in jeopardy.

When Estrada was impeached six years ago, nearly every Filipino except for the former president’s cronies felt that our nation’s future and our personal prospects for economic relief were compromised by his continued stay in office. Nevertheless, most those who participated in forcing his ouster needed to be reassured that the constitutional succession would be viable and that the whole thing will have the least possible adverse effect on the continuity of our institutions and the certainties that enable our economy to function.

Today, there is no such assurance. That explains the public’s indifference to the partisan political play Escudero and company are trying to initiate.

Any new impeachment effort will be a rerun of last year’s pointless exercise. It inspires as much excitement as watching a movie for the second time. The calculus of costs and benefits for such an undertaking is simply unattractive.

Escudero and company are trying to push forward the impeachment carnival on inhospitable ground. The effort is going to be strenuous.

The only people who seem to be really interested in distracting everybody with a new impeachment carnival are the ambitious young guns at the House who appear to be gearing up to run for seats in the Senate. The effort stinks of personal interest overwhelming concern for the public welfare.

Even the permanently outraged and permanently outrageous leftist party-list representatives seem to be all that enthusiastic in helping get off the ground what is ultimately a self-serving publicity stunt.

No one, to be sure, will say that the present administration enjoys great popularity. But, at the same time, there is no consensus that the continuation in office of a duly-elected and duly-proclaimed President is imminently harmful to the nation’s well-being.

Meanwhile, the 1987 elections looms large on the horizon. Its gravitational pull is doing strange things to the existing political alliances – particularly on the part of the opposition.

Every legislator seeking to be reelected wants to be part of the gravy train that will help him please his constituency. They vastly outnumber congressmen aspiring to become senators and therefore need a high-profile event that will imprint them in the public mind.

The arithmetic simply does not work to the favor of the advocates of a second impeachment effort.

The more likely outcome is that the second impeachment effort will dissipate under the pressure of practical politics. Some token effort might still be done, mainly to save face.

But the certainty of its defeat is even greater than last year’s – when the President seemed more vulnerable, the public extremely agitated and the ranks of political adventurers better populated.