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Opinion

Impeachment of Noynoy a moro-moro

TO THE QUICK - Jerry Tundag - The Freeman

I have to give it to Noynoy's allies in the House of Representatives. The House committee on justice, to which the three impeachment complaints filed against Noynoy have been referred, voted overwhelmingly last Tuesday to find all three complaints as sufficient in form. Please take note that this committee is packed with the most rabid allies of Noynoy and who, on some other occasion, would stop at nothing to overwhelm any and all obstructions in Noynoy's way.

So why then would these rabid allies of Noynoy, in their now-familiar overwhelming fashion, act to move along the impeachment complaints against their boss? Wouldn't it have been more in keeping with the nature of their commitment to Noynoy to promptly quash the life out of the impeachment complaints? Aren't they risking too much by tempting fate?

Well, let me just say this. Only the stupid will fall for their ruse. Of course they have to move the  impeachment complaints along because to kill it outright will give the impression that the committee is overwhelmingly biased for and protective of Noynoy. They have to put up appearances of neutrality and objectivity. They have to make it appear that they are truly worth the trust that their lofty offices imply.

Besides, they know that moving the impeachment complaints along by declaring them as sufficient in form is just a minor step in a process that they know will eventually be an exercise in futility for those who filed the complaints. The committee on justice that is packed with the most rabid allies of Noynoy know that the impeachment complaints will never survive voting in the plenary.

In effect, the committee on justice is just pulling the leg of Filipinos. They are mocking all expectations of a dignified process and fair play. They are insulting the intelligence of those continue to cling to the hope of some intrinsic goodness left inviolable even in the most hardened of politicians. What a way to be betrayed by one's fellowmen.

Killing the impeachment complaints outright would not have produced any ripple of anger or resentment in anyone, if that is even a valid fear in the hearts of the committee members. No Filipino living today who is in his right mind is entertaining the thought that Noynoy could be impeached, not because he is as clean as he pretends to be, but because the process of doing so is in the greasy hands of his subjects.

Given how Noynoy has bought the loyalty of these subjects, it is far easier for Hitler to go to heaven than for him to be impeached. And even granting, for the sake of toying with our sanity, that Noynoy does get impeached in the House of Representatives, there is still no way he can be ousted in an impeachment trial at the similarly co-opted Senate.

For as long as the composition of the House of Representatives and the Senate remained overwhelmingly dominated by Noynoy's beneficiaries, there can be no legal means of holding him accountable for his many sins of corruption and betrayal perpetrated at the expense of the Filipino's sense of good faith and, sadly enough, his gullibility.

That is why I have always said at the outset that it is useless to try and impeach Noynoy. Nothing would please me more than to have Noynoy removed because I have always believed he is not fit to be president. But I am no fool and I do not wish to see anyone embark on a fool's errand, which to me any impeachment complaint against Noynoy is.

The best way to make Noynoy accountable is just to wait until he steps down from office and then throw the kitchen sink at him when he no longer has immunity to shield him from suit. I would relish the day when he gets to be charged with the same accusations he has hurled against his enemies, not because I wish to see any human being suffer, but because I hate hypocrites down to my bones.

Noynoy is not who he claims to be. He is just as corrupt as everybody else. The kind of corruption he is engaged in is far worse than the simple act of corruption like stealing other people's money. The form of corruption Noynoy is engaged in is betraying the trust of those who believed in him, in dismantling sacred institutions, in twisting time-honored legal processes, in pawning the hopes of people, in reaping rewards for things he has not done.

Where in the world can you find a leader who, owing to his inability to fire his erring friends, ends up appointing other friends to the same offices, resulting in the duplication of functions and confusion of operations. In the end, services are screwed up and the nation suffers. Yet when accountability is demanded, the process to make it happen cannot make it happen because the process is in the hands of those whose beings have been compromised.

With all due respect to the memory of the late Jesse Robredo, a good man if there was one, I would like to bring up here something that I believe exposes the brazen duplicity of Noynoy. This has to do with Noynoy's splitting the DILG that Robredo used to head into two, with Robredo taking care of local government, and Noynoy's friend Rico Puno (not the singer) taking care of interior or police matters.

Robredo, the good man that he was, never complained the travesty of Noynoy splitting his department into two just to accommodate a drinking and shooting buddy. But that was an insult if there was one. When Robredo died, Noynoy, maybe scared that Robredo would appear to him in one of his drunken stupors, became very profuse with good words for Robredo, words he did not match with actions when Robredo was still alive. That to me is duplicity of the highest order.

[email protected]

BUT I

COMPLAINTS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE

IMPEACHMENT

JESSE ROBREDO

NO FILIPINO

NOYNOY

RICO PUNO

ROBREDO

WHEN ROBREDO

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