The Long View
The 2010 Movement
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:26:00 04/14/2008
MANILA, Philippines - Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the country, since 2005, has been divided into three camps, according to the surveys. Half of the country opposes the President. However, this 50 percent is divided into smaller chunks on the basis of what to do about the President. Another quarter of the population will stick by the President come hell or high water. And the remaining quarter of the population calls itself neutral, but is more likely to support the President, when push comes to shove, at least until 2010 and protesting, all the while, that it has no love for her.
The effect though, is that the President’s solid 25 percent support ends up ballooning to 50 percent because of the supposedly reluctant—but tacit—endorsement of the 25 percent who are “neutral”; while the 50 percent against the President remains divided on what to do. In effect all the President has to do is keep the 25 percent that are “neutral” on her side (by repeatedly insisting she’ll step down on June 30, 2010, for example) and play off her critics against each other, according to the classic strategy of divide-and-conquer.
So our political landscape has ended up like the trenches of World War I, where neither side (the Allies and the Central Powers) could figure out how to win, but could still prevent the other side from achieving victory. From time to time, one would be on the offensive, the other on the defensive, but only temporarily. Both sides relied on a war of attrition—the most wasteful and most destructive and pointless kind of warfare—to prevent the other side’s victory. It finally took the entry of America to shift the balance of resources in the Allies’ favor.
Opponents of the President, out of frustration, have taken to bombarding the 25 percent who are “neutral” by challenging their claims to neutrality, and pointing out (with a great deal of justice) that they have mounted a 2010 Movement which essentially wants to give the President a free pass until her current term expires.
But a deeper exploration of what the supposedly neutral want points to how a portion of that group could be persuaded to support the effort to hold the President accountable when it counts—while she’s in office.
At the heart of the willingness of the 25 percent who claim to be neutral effectively supporting the President are three things. The first is a fear or outright loathing of the President’s critics. The second is a fear of the unforeseen consequences of another People Power, including the possibility that the present Constitution would get scrapped. The third is related to the second: that the preferred method for removing a controversial chief executive should be impeachment.
I’ve long believed that so long as there’s even the slimmest hope for an impeachment, more people, whether already publicly against the President or who insist they’re neutral, would prefer this method to any other to hold the President accountable. Therefore, we’re looking at two opportunities to end the trench warfare and break the logjam: impeachment in October of this year or the President trying to change our form of government to give herself a new lease on political life past 2010.
Those who don’t want to take the risk of a revolution will support a genuine impeachment effort in October. Since I believe a majority of the public still prefer impeachment, I support this move.
Indeed, there’s a chance the constitutionally sound option of impeachment could take place even earlier.
Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. in his “Notes toward a circumspect ruling on executive privilege,” published on March 17, had as his third point, the following: “The House rules on impeachment disallowing continuing amendments of impeachment complaints are mentally dishonest and constitutionally infirm so that the Supreme Court should throw out what the former Speaker of the House himself disdained as ‘a sham complaint’ filed for purposes of inoculating the President from the genuine article.” On my show he pointed out that a case filed by Rep. Ronaldo Zamora is pending in the Supreme Court; and that furthermore, if there’s one play executive privilege can’t be invoked, period, it’s in the impeachment process.
But impeachment prior to October and according to more rational rules depends on the Supreme Court, which has been sitting on Representative Zamora’s case. I’ve long argued the House should revise its rules, go back to the Quirino-era impeachment procedure, which required presenting evidence first before tackling the acceptability of the charges. (That Quirino himself opened up Palace records to the House, and didn’t invoke executive privilege, is another story.) In the meantime, another proposal I’ve long supported is for a Special Prosecutor who would essentially do the preliminary investigation of the President, on behalf of the House.
So it’s not a waste of time—indeed, the opposite—to pursue a three-pronged strategy between now and October: to pressure the House to redeem itself by amending its impeachment rules to make them rational; to pass legislation establishing a Special Prosecutor appointed by the House to do preliminary investigation on impeachment complaints; and for the Supreme Court to resolve the Zamora case to nullify the “impeach me” strategy invented by Palace lawyers. The refusal of the House and Supreme Court to budge on these three issues will leave no room for doubt where these institutions lie—firmly in the pocket of the President.
But until then, the critics of the President will have proven respect for a minority view—the “neutral” 25 percent—and given every chance for our institutions not only to work, but to strengthen them so as to make them responsive to questions over the chief executive—any president, now or in the future. Because if this effort fails, it seems to me the Palace will then gamble on trying to extend its stay.
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