Other Senate invitees can imitate Ligots

Gloria Arroyo used to pay off Congress to preserve her in office. Party mates would be seen handing out P500,000 in gift bags without care. Intention outweighed reputation: to stop Arroyo’s impeachments, by hook or mostly crook, as new scams turned up each year. Openly bribing legislators was easy since it was taxpayers’ money they were giving away. The louder people cried for clean government, the more Arroyo

et al

thwarted them by foul means. Outside Congress she readied her rear guards too. Foremost is Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez to quash any graft case against her and minions. Even when legally barred Arroyo posted loyalists, including a personal beautician and a gardener, in executive and judicial sinecures. The result of the 2010 election can only be the cumulative reaction to Arroyo’s transactional Presidency. Severest critic Noynoy Aquino won as President, as her party crumbled.

As congresswoman, Arroyo lingers in power but heads a puny minority. With the shoe on the other foot, her loyalists Monday tried to pin their dirty tricks on the new House leadership. The scenario was familiar, although it was their point person Gutierrez on the impeachment dock. They spread the text that the pork barrel will be withheld of congressmen who’d support Gutierrez. Then they used their concocted text to accuse President Aquino of buying the impeachment vote. When the tally came in — 210 to impeach, 47 against, four abstentions — they sniveled about cheap partisanship.

Arroyo and party feign to be aggrieved, but they actually scored points. Gutierrez should beware of their devious support. In spreading the text-canard, they were able to wangle from a defensive Malacañang the promise that even their pork perks as minority members were forthcoming. Thence they proceeded gleefully to delay what Gutierrez herself knew was inevitable impeachment. They must have phoned after the voting to condole that they did all they could for her. But now with their pork barrels at stake, she must depend on the other lines of defense that Arroyo had laid down.

*      *      *

For many first-term legislators, impeaching Gutierrez was a duty. Aware of the anti-corruption message of the 2010 poll outcome, they needed to be true to voters. Requests by certain religionists to be absent last Monday, and so have no quorum for the voting, were ignored. The young legislators consulted their constituents. Sectoral Rep. Angelo Palmones noted, “Gutierrez’s supporters may say all they want, but the message is clear. People want removal of the corrupt. In exercise of people power, the majority overwhelmingly voted for impeachment.”

Former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. opined that the voting was a piercing of Arroyo’s armor. Gutierrez was one of many booby traps left behind to deter the exposure of the Arroyo tenure’s anomalies. More lie hidden in government corporations and financial institutions, and in lower and higher courts. “With Gutierrez’s impeachment,” Pimentel said, “Arroyo can now be made to answer for her abuses in power.”

*      *      *

The fight now moves to the 23-member Senate, which will try Gutierrez for betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution. Hearings are set to begin in May, when Congress resumes sessions from this week’s recess.

Betting is hot this early that Gutierrez will walk. The numbers favor her. She’d need only eight votes for acquittal; nine senators are in open opposition to Aquino. More evident is Gutierrez’s smug confidence in how the senators will vote for her. Because she lost in the House, she wails that Aquino bought the political vote. Because she’s positive of a Senate win, she’s saying she’ll get a fair political trial.

The Senate has first to grapple with an issue related to Gutierrez’s downfall — her abetting of plundering military comptrollers. Gen. Jacinto Ligot, wife Erlinda, and brother-in-law Edgardo Yambao have been mocking the Senate Blue-Ribbon Committee. By invoking rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, they refuse to answer even the most innocuous questions. Ignoring the Senate’s investigative power, Ligot is tight-lipped about where he resides, Linda about liking ballroom dancing, and jobless Yambao about the hundred million pesos in his bank accounts. Then, there’s the matter of whether to continue probing into possible unexplained wealth of a general who has killed himself. Future inquiries, including Gutierrez’s trial, will depend on how the Senate handles the matters.

*      *      *

Full-page newspaper ads, each worth nearly P200,000, purport to defend Gutierrez. Yet aside from raising suspicions about who’s paying, the ads expose the lameness of her alibis.

About her inability since 2006 to indict Jocjoc Bolante for the P728-million fertilizer scam, Gutierrez says she has yet to finish questioning all 178 co-respondents. But then, she has also failed since 2008 to charge the euro-smuggling police generals, and there are only seven of them. She has found no one liable for the P1.3-billion Comelec automation scam, despite the justice department, the Senate and the Supreme Court declaring it anomalous.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected]