Open letter to Congress / Chavez dares ‘Brat Pack’

Your Honors, I write this letter no longer in outrage, no longer in savage vitupe-ration which is my wont. I write it on the off-chance we can converge somewhere in polite dialogue and snatch the republic from imminent collapse. The issue, which has convulsed the entire nation, is really very simple. You have decided to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide. You say you have the constitutional right to do so because of your "power of the purse" and your "power of oversight".

You contend you have all the right to ransack the Court’s books and records to make sure not a single centavo is misspent out of the Judiciary Development Fund. Justice Davide says you have no such power over him and over the High Court which alone can decide whether the House charges are impeachable or not. He has declared war on you for "falsifying" the truth, for imperiling democracy. He has sworn the Court’s records on the JDF are clean and transparent. The Commission on Audit (COA) has squarely stood by Hilario Davide.

And there the issue lies. The Irresistible Force against the Immovable Object?

You will not budge. And neither will the Chief Justice. In fact, you in the House closed ranks in high dudgeon after the High Court sought a temporary standstill to let tempers cool until Congress reconvenes November 10. Speaker Jose de Venecia considered this call for restraint as an insult on his person and his congressional flock. Forthwith, he said he would fight to damnation anybody who lays a hand on single hair on his and Congress’ heads. He means Hilario Davide.

Let me be candid. I believe that by now you have realized the nation will not stand for the impeachment and trial in the Senate of the Chief Justice. In standing by your impeachment guns, you have isolated yourself from the very citizenry you claim to represent, the Republic you claim to respect, the nation you claim to cherish. If you should persist, you will spin a crazy, madcap top that could drive our already fragile democracy over the cliff. Chaos and anarchy could ensue. Behind them bristle the guns of a military only too eager and happy to take over power. Is this what we want?

Your Honors, you cannot impeach and crucify Hilario Davide anymore than a madding crowd can hurl imprecations at the Black Nazarene – and get away with it. You must realize ours is a nation that lives and breathes by its symbols, its myths. Like it as not, the Chief Justice is such a symbol, a towering symbol. In fact there are very few left.

You cannot like what the ancient Athenians did – condemn Socrates to death. They were driven by scoundrels and demagogues. And Socrates, as he drew in his last breath, wisely warned that Jupiter would wreak vengeance on the Athenians "far more severe than what you have inflicted on me." He was right. Time and history redeemed Socrates. And he is now one of the most beloved and respected philosophers carved out in the Niche of the Immortals.

Addressing the same Athenians, Demosthenes, one of the greatest orators of all time, denounced those who "set these miscreants on me." In bold and gripping prose, he set up his priorities in politics: "To support the honor, the power, the glory of my Fatherland, these to exalt and in these to have been my being." Ah, but Demosthenes placed politics on a pedestal.

Your Honors, was the Fatherland or the Motherland ever in your mind at all when you set out to impeach Mr. Davide? Or are we back to Mark Anthony? Over the dead body of Julius Caesar, he intoned for all time: "Oh judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason. My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar. And I must pause till it come back to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honorable man." Brutus was a sonouvabitch. Must Davide keel over like Caesar?

Your Honors, are you then to implore that you alone are honorable, that Hilario Davide is much too ambitious, an abject, pathetic fraud like Caesar and must now be interred through impeachment and Senate trial and conviction? You have one problem, Sires. You cannot get the country to agree with you, nor the moral pillars of our country like Cory Aquino and Cardinal Sin, the Church, nor the stalwarts of civil society, nor media, nor all the men and women who believe you are straying from the truth. And are angry.

We would be on a level playing field if Speaker Jose de Venecia and all the congressmen opened their books and records. Then the public too would have power of oversight over Congress. Civil society would see how they have spent or misspent hundreds of billions, it not trillions of pesos entrusted to them by the people. Sen. Joke Arroyo, a verbal bomb-thrower beyond compare, says that if Joe de V opens his records as Speaker, he would disintegrate overnight as one of the biggest villains the nation has ever brought forth.

Or are we missing somebody in this Open Letter.

We are addressing this equally and with more urgency to Eduardo (Danding) Cojuangco. We are told he actually wields the baton, that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and Jose de V have allegedly joined the "conspiracy". The scenario is that Hilario Davide stands in the way. And so, he must be destroyed. The scenario is more specific in that they would ram through a Constituent Assembly and thereby hold the nation hostage. This would reportedly involve massive cheating in the 2004 elections. With Davide out, the Supreme Court would be lambent, submissive clay in the hands of the perceived "Axis of Villainy" headed by GMA, Danding Cojuangco and Joe de V.

I do not wish to fall pray to these assertions. I believe, like Ninoy Aquino did, that a little portion of Jesus Christ resides in every man.

I precisely call upon the Trio, entreat them in fact to reverse course. They serve no purpose, except that of Evil, and I say Evil with all the hate I can muster. For I have been in journalism more than half a century and fought evil at every turn. Politics is now being demonized to bring in the galloping hooves of the Four Horsemen. Your Honors, Ma’m, Mr. Cojuangco, above everything else, you must love our country. Remember Lord Action. He said "Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion." And John F. Kennedy: "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, ask His blessing and His help, but knowing here on earth God’s work must truly be our own."

Sires, Ma’m, You lose nothing in reversing course withdraw. You lose nothing in accepting this is a battle, nay a war, you cannot, can never win. On the contrary, the bells will peal in appreciation. You must help snatch the nation from the jaws of perdition and perfidy. There lies our salvation – and yours.

In the final analysis, what has to prevail is honor, dignity, love of country.

* * *

Atty. Frank Chavez is on the warpath. Like Cochise, the Indian warrior, he has set his sights on battle with what many now call the "Brat Pack", and promises to settle their hash. They are, from left to right, Reps. Felix William "Wimpy" Fuentebella, Gilbert Teodoro, Mark Cojuangco, Charlie Cojuangco, Gilbert Remulla, Michael John Davit, Francis Escudero. The six mount the front barricades for Danding Cojuangco in the impeachment imbroglio.

"I am challenging all of them to a public debate," Frank Chavez declares – "all of them". If there are 83 signatories (articles of impeachment), that makes it about even. Theirs are dangerous propositions, themselves provocations to civil strife. Theirs is a species of sedition, proposing the destruction of our institutions.

"Whatever the Supreme Court orders, they defy. That is an invitation to lawlessness. They want to amend the petitions and indict all the members of the Supreme Court, This is an invitation to collapsing the entire judiciary. There should be a Constitutional Assembly so that they can amend the rules of impeachment and make it effective the next time around.

"These children have grown up and lived a spoiled life. They have never known hardships and difficulties." Frank Chavez goes on to say the six are scions of political dynasties who never scrubbed the floor, nor peeled a potato, nor rode a carretela, who lived their lives in the exclusive igloos of the rich and powerful. Frank struggled to be a lawyer every inch of the way in dire straits, in sickness and in health.

I agree. I myself have called them young arrogant punks with absolutely no call to lecture me on human rights, political values, and moral ethics.

If they are as good as they claim to be, then they must accept the challenge of Frank Chavez for a public debate. It’s the Brat-Pack proved its mettle, time it got out of its gilded NPC corral, time it slugged it out with the critics. This Wimpy, I like to see how he can take a crushing left hook on his kisser. You gonna cry, Boy?