Post mortem on the impeachment - III

The next obvious question is: Had the amended complaint reached the Senate, would GMA have been convicted?

One doubts it. Given the amended complaint's recitals and the possible evidence to be adduced vis-à-vis the law and the constitution, GMA would have been exonerated.

For one, there's legal plausibility though debatable, that GMA could not be convicted for acts done prior to her proclamation by Congress as the elected president.

For another, assuming that she be impeachable for pre-proclamation misdeeds, there's no indubitable evidence for conviction. The principal causes of action inre electoral fraud or undue intervention with Comelec, or alleged kidnapping, or alleged bribery in the Garci tapes, are inadmissible in evidence. No subtle procedural fine-tuning could make the Garci tapes admissible, despite contrary opinions of so-called legal luminaries.

For still another, how could GMA be held liable for the PIATCO deal, or the Northrail question cognizable by ordinary courts, or for alleged human rights violations and killings of dissidents, or of jueteng on hearsay charge against her husband and her son, or for alleged defects of her statement of assets and liabilities?

Lastly, the xeroxed and unauthenticated election results sampled by Rep. Cayetano are hardly admissible either. Could the Senate act as presidential electoral tribunal and order their verification? Besides, "producing" these election documents could be done easily at Recto or Carriedo Streets.

Aside from these infirmities, the Senate trial is, again, a political proceeding and, is a game of numbers. It takes 2/3 of the entire Senate - now numbering 23 - or 16 senators to convict. Conversely, it only takes 8 to vote for exoneration.

Ticking off one's fingers on the likely 8 is a breeze. Besides, regardless of leanings, it's certain that lawyer-Senators would be hard-put to convict sans indubitable proof.

In resume, did the lower house put closure to GMA's problems and her parlous perch? Or, has it merely arched an open-ended question, akin to a seething and spewing crater of a volcano whose pending eruption is not a matter of if, but when? Has it meant that GMA has nothing to answer for, and that, she is innocent except for a "lapse of judgment"?

No, GMA isn't trouble-free, despite her imperturbable and redoubtable outward poise, or her UN speech that she is "politically stronger than a month ago".

The quashal of the impeachment does not transform GMA into lily white in pristine innocence to confer her sainthood over her "Hello Garci" boner. She might be cleared, or the attribution of guilt may continue, depending on the ultimate truth over the Garci tapes.

And perhaps, the ultimate truth could only be fleshed out when Garcillano and Samuel Ong shall have surfaced, and be probed thoroughly with Sgt. Doble and other ISAFP personnel. Whether it be done by the so-called Truth Commission as suggested by the CBCP, or by the DOJ, or whoever, ensuing legal actions have to be pursued relentlessly.

Thus, the truth could be ferreted out, as well, how and who masterminded the whole Garci caper, so seemingly innocuous, and yet, so colossal as to rock and grievously wound the whole Filipino nation.

And only then, perhaps, could the unbiased truth be sifted and gleaned, shorn of the irreverent say-so of the "truth" purveyors; and, in accordance with the rule of law, not merely as ruled by the parliament of the streets.