It’s obscene. But at the same time, it’s smart.
An obviously untenable impeachment complaint was filed at the House of Representatives by a lawyer who has been behaving strangely lately. The complaint was endorsed by a single congressman: a nondescript back-bencher on his first term and belonging to no definite party.
Opposition congressmen howled that the complaint was a fraud. The lawyer, Magdalo defense counsel Roel Pulido, dared them to beef up the complaint and muster the numbers. Call the bluff and get it going.
One leftist solon claimed he was offered a bribe to endorse the impeachment complaint. The bribe was supposedly offered by one Francis Ver, described as an “operative” for the Kampi Party. Ver denied the claim.
Other opposition lawmakers claimed they were approached by Ver but could not recall the latter offering them bribes. Whatever. One endorsement was enough to make the complaint a valid submission.
The complaint itself is pretty bizarre — and not just for its remarkable brevity. The short document devoted much more effort to attacking House Speaker Jose de Venecia than to building a case against President Gloria Arroyo. Pulido, just a week before, filed a complaint against de Venecia before the House ethics committee.
The half-baked impeachment complaint seemed intended to hit two birds with one stone. Doomed to fail, it “immunizes” President Arroyo from any more impeachment initiatives at least for the next year. By effectively defusing the impeachment bomb via a piece of lousy legal craftsmanship, the complaint also weakens the political position of de Venecia.
De Venecia’s political stock rises when the President appears to be under imminent threat. That happened during the two impeachment initiatives the past two years. In those instances, de Venecia became utterly invaluable to the President as he is seen as the only one who can hold the ranks of the ruling rainbow coalition and stop the impeachment process by denying its proponents a third of the votes at the House required to begin a trial in the infernally hostile Senate.
When the President is “immunized” from a serious impeachment effort, so the conventional political wisdom goes, de Venecia’s political stock is expected to sink. In which case, again according to the conventional wisdom, he becomes more vulnerable to a strong bid by his rivals for the post.
That conventional wisdom falls flat on its face if we consider that the fraud of an impeachment complaint has now been laid bare as a crude effort by Speaker de Venecia’s easily identifiable rivals. While the President might be less reliant on the coalition skills of the Speaker for the moment, it does not necessarily mean that her support for him would be diminished. While de Venecia might be put on the spot by the impeachment complaint filed by Pulido, it does not mean that the congressmen will rally around his rivals.
Too much cause-and-effect has been presumed here. A politically weakened de Venecia is still far stronger (and for the President, far more reliable) than any of the discredited schemers lusting for his post.
Nevertheless, de Venecia was caught in the horns of a dilemma. The Constitution commands him to forward within a specified time frame a duly endorsed impeachment complaint to the House Justice Committee for determination as to its sufficiency in form and substance. But submitting to the Justice Committee a complaint obviously lacking in form and substance (and, furthermore, tarred by the circumstances of its filing and endorsement) would make him party to the perpetration of what many call a fraud.
But de Venecia is not a veteran politician for nothing. Citing conflict-of-interest, he excused himself from presiding over the disposal of the impeachment complaint. The deputy speaker, presiding over the session, along with the majority of congressmen, followed the command of the Constitution and forwarded the lousy complaint to the Justice Committee. There, it is expected to die a natural death.
The deed is done. The ploy to “immunize” the President from yet another impeachment effort has succeeded. Incredible but successful.
It was a sneaky ploy. Something akin to all those posters mushrooming around us these days, featuring names and faces but indicating no elective post being sought. These are, technically, not campaign posters and therefore do not violate the law limiting the campaign period for barangay elections to eight days before voting day.
We all know they are campaign posters. But technically they are not. The guys who put up these things are sneaky but smart.
They learned a lot from those who are now senators and who began by paying for television spots well before the campaign period that featured their names and faces but did not indicate they were running for any elective post. So, technically, they were not campaigning prematurely. They were just spending good money for nonsensical ads — and exploiting large technical loopholes.
At the House, we have something now that is technically an impeachment complaint properly forwarded to the Justice Committee. But we all know it is not an impeachment complaint.
Sneaky but smart. Obscene but clever. Crude but at the same time sophisticated.
Whoever said politics is an art seriously underestimated our politicians. They can run a tank through a loophole.
And so that’s that. It’s done. Distasteful but done.