Laying the predicate - My Viewpoint

Objectively speaking, Senate Minority Leader Tito Guingona's call for the resignation of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada was what you might call, rhetorically, a case of premature ejaculation. Put another way, you might also characterize it as an egregious failure to lay the predicate or establish the premises for his dramatic call. Don't criticize him for alleged lack of sincerity or patriotism. Tito Guingona does not have to establish his credentials or prove his love of country. He is a gentleman, a statesman and a distinguished legislator. That is not the problem.

The problem is that his call for the President's resignation is standing on air. There are no underpinnings there, only the vague echoes of oppositionist orthodoxy. Manifestly, the economy is not in disarray. The civil government is not in disarray. The military is not in disarray or at the point of mutiny. The police are not in disarray or about to abandon their posts to killers, drug dealers and rapists. Our democracy is not in disarray or about to crash and disintegrate upon the ashes of alleged corruption and cronyism. There are problems, yes, but the consensus is that the unknown and unknowable forces that would be unleashed by a leadership vacuum render a precipitate resignation of the incumbent president an unrealistic option.

Guingona's ouster call has split the minority party. On the one hand, former congressman and Transportation Secretary Nani Perez says Lakas-NUCD will support the senator's move. On the other hand, there is no great rush of congressmen or senators to Tito's side. Indeed, some of his own colleagues in the Senate, including some who are perennially anti-Erap, have broken away from him on this issue. Some Lakas-NUCD bigwigs have declared that this is not a party initiative.

The Makati Business Club, for one, has dissociated itself from any move to oust Estrada before his term ends, either by an armed coup or by a forced resignation. The club's leaders may not be in total agreement with the President's programs or management style, but they are one in expressing dismay and serious concern about any attempt to unseat a President before the end of his term of office. To do this now would establish a precedent which will come back in the future to haunt us. The 1998 elections are over. 2004 is four years away. The Constitution provides for the way to impeach a President who is otherwise capacitated to serve. We should stick closely to that Constitutional path and eschew the kind of adventurism that leads to an uncontrollable crisis. Unless, of course, what the proponents have in mind is, precisely, an uncontrollable crisis. But that puts us in an entirely different ballgame.

Still, Guingona's initiative does have its uses. For one thing, it proves yet again -- if we needed any more proof -- that democracy is alive, well and kicking vigorously in this country. The debate he has provoked may be heated, and may even get mired in mutual accusations about real motives. But at least there is debate. Guingona will not himself be unseated, arrested or prosecuted for violation of some penny-ante internal security law. He will simply lose this debate. But if we think we've heard the last of him, we're sadly mistaken.

There is, you see, a lot more commitment and adherence to democratic process in this country than we might be willing to acknowledge. Some other countries might think we're crazy to be putting up with an "inefficient" or "backward" system such as this. Our reply has always been: Thanks, we'll muddle through.

Ricardo V. Puno, Jr.'s e-mail address: [email protected]