It's political, it's biased-just like it's supposed to be
We’ve heard Merceditas Gutierrez. She calls her impeachment a farce. She says that based on the political alliances in of the House, you can already predict its outcome. She demands “due process”.
But hold on. Let’s remember what Gutierrez is on trial for. Unlike Joseph Estrada, who was impeached over criminal acts like plunder and perjury, the biggest case against Gutierrez is betrayal of public trust.
Now, betrayal of public trust isn’t a crime—you can’t put someone in jail for it. It isn’t a civil offense either—you can’t be fined for betraying the trust of the public.
Instead, public trust is enshrined in our constitution as a condition for leadership. The power of all government comes from the people. Therefore, a person can’t lead without their support.
Public Trust
To put it in simpler terms, imagine your family driver. When you see he has the tendency to sleep behind the wheel, you’ll have every right to fire him simply because you feel he can put you in danger. No need to wait for him to get into an accident; you can dismiss him just because you don’t trust him with your life.
The Ombudsman is that driver. We are her employers, and by impeaching her for betrayal of public trust, we’re not asking a question of guilt or innocence, we’re simply asking ourselves whether we have confidence in her driving.
Many of us think that Ombudsman Gutierrez has been asleep at the wheel. For many years, she has sat on fertilizer fund scam, the ZTE-NBN deal, alleged election-rigging, etc. That alone—and never mind whether she did it intentionally—is cause for us to rethink her employment.
People’s Will
Now, who makes the decision to fire her? The family driver can only be let go by the head of the household. The Ombudsman, on the other hand, can only be dismissed by the representatives of the people. That’s Congress, meaning the House and the Senate.
See, everyday, Congress makes decisions on our behalf. They can raise taxes, make deals with other countries, and through the Commission on Appointments, also determine who the government hires. Therefore, it follows that Congress also has the power to fire people for us.
So, in short: 1) We, the Filipino people, hired Merci Gutierrez. 2) We, through Congress, can fire Merci Gutierrez. 3) We can fire Merci Gutierrez simply because we don’t trust her to do the job that we need her to do.
Accountability
This impeachment is as simple as that. It doesn’t even need the procedure of a court trial, because, after all, nobody is accusing Gutierrez of a crime, and if she fails in the proceedings, she doesn’t become a criminal, she merely loses a job.
Instead of defending against guilt, what Gutierrez should be doing is to convince us, her employers, that she deserves our confidence. Because while Congressmen and Senators are expected to judge Merci’s case on the weight of the evidence, they, first and foremost, are expected to vote according to will of their constituents. Ultimately, they—like Robert Jaworski and Tessie Aquino-Oreta, who damaged their political careers when they voted against opening the second envelope—are accountable to voters.
In the meantime, Gutierrez must realize that she is a family driver, that the process she is due is a political one, and that, despite her protestation, the only foreseeable outcome there is to this process is that the will of the people prevails.
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