The clarity of the Church

I had always thought that those who accused Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of engaging in partisan political activity when he filed that impeachment case against GMA were afflicted with serious cases of foot-in-mouth disease. Now that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has put the weight of its authority and prestige behind the Bishop’s action, those accusers have been put in their proper place.

Bishop Iniguez himself thought it necessary to explain that he was acting as a private citizen, and not as prelate of the Catholic Church, when he filed that complaint. That was unnecessary. His reliance on the Constitutional process of impeachment was, in fact, totally consistent with the CBCP resolution to pursue legal remedies at this time.

Some politicians think it is impossible to separate the identity of a Church leader from his views as a private citizen. But I prefer to rely on Bishop Iniguez’s word that he acted purely out of private conviction. As an individual complainant, who signed exactly the same complaint as two previous groups of complainants, Bishop Iniguez will now have to go through the same legal process as the others. His Bishop’s ring entitles him to no special consideration, much less deference, when the Honorable Representatives of the people evaluate those complaints through the House justice committee.

In impeachment cases, I submit, the status of the complainant is irrelevant. All the Constitution requires is one complainant, who can be a private citizen, and one congressman who endorses the complaint. When Rep. Etta Rosales endorsed the Iniguez complaint, it became the ministerial duty of the House Secretary General to accept it. He had no discretion about that.

Nor did it really matter to the impeachment process that Bishop Iniguez also added as part of his superfluous rationalization that he was also acting as member of Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya, a group which reportedly espouses a shift by government to a frankly nationalist economic policy. He could have filed the complaint as president of a national movement to restore bicycles on the road and ban all motor vehicles. That too wouldn’t have mattered.

What will really matter, in the end, is whether the allegations in the complaint will even see the day when the respondent President will be asked to file an answer to the charges and, ultimately, face trial in the Senate.

And guess what? Where that is concerned, we are back precisely where we were when Oliver Lozano took it upon himself to be first to file an impeachment complaint, to allegations that he deliberately filed a piece of garbage in order to smooth the way for preferential treatment and the early dismissal of said complaint.

The problem remains that Sim Datumanong’s House Justice Committee will solemnly determine whether the first complaint filed – and it won’t really make any difference what that legitimately filed complaint turns out to be, since all the complaints thus far and still to be filed are and will be identical anyway – meets the test of sufficiency in form and substance. And does anyone really doubt what the Datumanong committee will decide in regard to sufficiency in substance?

The only way to override the Datumanong committee’s fully-anticipated ruling of insufficiency in substance of the impeachment complaint, whether filed by a thousand private individuals, former Veep Tito Guingona, Bishop Iniguez or whoever still lies in wait to visit the Secretary General’s with yet another identical document, is to get 78 intrepid congressmen to vote to reject the justice committee finding and either revert to further proceedings in the House or send the matter to the Senate for trial.

Sadly, this won’t happen. The pro-impeachment congressmen, ignominiously bereft of the requisite number, have been noticeably scarce in media about the substance of these complaints, except for the serial appearance of at least one in this group before the House Secretary General to endorse the particular complaint.

The reason, I am told by these peach-shirted solons, is that they know what fate awaits them at the hands of alleged hitmen like Boy Nograles a.k.a. Boy Nogi and Butch Pitchay. They are really looking forward to eventually taking their case directly to the people through a People’s Court or Truth Commission when the futility of the Constitutional impeachment mechanism is fully exposed.

And the reason for the confidence of the pro-impeachment advocates in this eventual scenario? Why, the number of non-government organizations, private individuals and clergy – including renegades such as Iniguez and Lingayen-Dagupan Bishop Oscar Cruz – that have expressed willingness to have the truth come out in a more hospitable forum quite outside the Congress madhouse.

This is what’s shaping up to be the final battleground, one where we can fully expect the disappointed congressmen, now numbering from 27 to 29 hardy souls, not to be content to sit on the sidelines. It will be interesting to witness the jostling between them and the throngs of "private individuals," including clergy, for their moment in time before the microphone and television cameras that are sure to be there, gavel to gavel, to record the tumult for posterity.

When therefore Catholic bishops like Deogracias Iniguez agree to include their names in impeachment complaints, administration congressmen should not instinctively froth at the mouth. Incidentally, there are likely to be more clergy waiting in the wings, now that CBCP has adopted a policy of, if not quite outright encouragement, then at least of "benign neglect."

Their participation, because it remains within the realm of Constitutional process, should be welcomed by pro-GMA stalwarts. But since I take it the latter were not born yesterday, and they know the ultimate destination of the legal exercise and where this mobilization of private individuals is headed, these stalwarts would be well-advised to prepare for more interesting times.

The storm is gathering, and you’d have to be a dummy not to see it coming. On the other hand, it would be serious error to think that either Boy or Butch can be remotely characterized as a dummy.