Shortened

With public interest waning and more and more people believing this impeachment trial is a grand waste of time, the prosecution panel announced they will likely cut the number of articles for which they intend to present witnesses and evidence. Someone from the House panel, however, admitted beneath his breath that the prosecution panel actually ran out of witnesses and pieces of evidence to present.

That is just so unfair.

The Chief Justice has been charged and publicly vilified. Those responsible for filing those flawed articles of impeachment have the responsibility to either present evidence to prove their case or publicly admit those articles were a mistake.

They cannot just take out articles of impeachment so cavalierly. A man’s honor has been smeared. The least those reckless congressmen can do is to admit that the charges cannot stand the rigor of examination in open court.

To date, the prosecutors have made much hay of the alleged discrepancies in the Chief Justice’s SALN. At worse, that amounts to perjury. But perjury is not among the articles of impeachment.

The prosecutors did try to bring in witnesses that would prove bribery. But bribery is also not among the articles of impeachment brought before the highest magistrate.

The same funny panel lately tried to exploit a dissenting opinion to nail the Chief Justice on charges of giving favor to the former president. That two-day session has been a waste, the testimony of the Secretary of Justice dismissed as mere hearsay. Still, the basic question regarding this article is whether the Chief Justice alone is to bear fault to what is a collegial decision on the part of the High Court.

President Aquino, of course, could not resist lending his opinion on the trial process. From whatever bench he sits, and whatever law book he has read, he declares that from some “political dimension” he imagines, the de Lima testimony is not hearsay.

Then he instructs his loyal congressmen to go out and campaign, house-to-house if necessary, in order to “educate” the people on the charges against Corona. It is as if he is determined to open yet another venue for the trial other than what goes on at the Senate.

Cayetano land

Order may have been regained in Maguindanao with most of the formerly dominant landlord clan in jail. Order has yet to be retained in Taguig, however.

In the wake of the 2010 elections, about 80 cases of electoral protests were filed with the Comelec. In all save one, the ballot boxes were duly retrieved without incident for purposes of securing them for recount. The only locality where ballot boxes could not be retrieved by the Comelec is Taguig.

The mayoral contest in Taguig was a closely fought one. Incumbent Laarni Cayetano scraped a win of only about two thousand votes over former justice Dante O. Tinga. The losing side contested the results and demanded a recount.

The Comelec, for its part, issued a total of nine orders for the ballot boxes to be retrieved. To date, not one ballot has been retrieved.

In a report to the Comelec, Director Jubil Surmieda, head of the retrieval team, explained his failure as due to the imminence of violence each time retrieval was attempted. Once, photographers from the Comelec’s education and information department were accosted by armed men clad in black and prevented from taking pictures. Each time a Comelec team was due to retrieve the ballot boxes, all roads leading to the Taguig city hall are blocked with trucks and surrounded by menacing goons bearing arms.

The Comelec retrieval team pleaded with the PNP chief for escorts. The PNP, however, said this was a job for the Philippine Marines. When help from the Marines was sought, the commanding general hesitated, citing “various commitments” for his men. He then asked the Comelec officials to get clearance from the DND.

Last week, the Comelec did write DND Secretary Voltaire Gazmin for a contingent of Marines to escort the retrieval team. As of this writing, Gazmin has not yet replied to the letter.

It took great effort for the complainants to inspire the Comelec to issue a retrieval order in the first place. A number of powerful officials of the current administration are reported to be exerting pressure on the Comelec to delay the order. When the retrieval order was finally won, no military escorts could be found to secure the process. The same high administration officials are said to be dissuading the military from providing security escorts for the Comelec team.

Since February 17, a spectacle has been in place at the Taguig city hall. Goons had barricaded the streets and set up tents to prevent access to the ballot around the clock. Both Senator Alan Peter Cayetano (husband of Laarni) and his sister Pia have been reported to be using their political influence to both delay the issuance of retrieval orders and, when those orders are eventually issued, to prevent physical collection of the ballots.

At one point, Laarni Cayetano managed to convince the Comelec to agree to a rather bizarre arrangement. The ballots will be collected piecemeal and then returned immediately to Taguig after recounting. After the Comelec agreed to this strange condition, Cayetano nevertheless prevented access for the retrieval team.

Preventing the service of a legitimate order is normally considered sedition. The refusal of the military and police forces to secure a Comelec team on a legitimate mission is normally considered contemptuous conduct. Yet the Comelec seems so incapacitated in this case. Their efforts, it appears, are stymied from the very top of the political totem pole.

This bizarre situation in Taguig can only be attributed to the extraordinary influence enjoyed by the Cayetano siblings. That extraordinary influence, it seems, will be enjoyed for as long as the impeachment trial is in progress.