It began on Tuesday at 10 in the morning and was done shortly before 11. It took place in the appropriately named Andaya Hall of the House of Representatives. It was achieved by means of a ruling by the chair, Rep. Matias Defensor, on the Motion of Intervention submitted to the House to include the BJE-MOA (Bangsamoro Judicial Entity – Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) as one of the impeachment charges. The motion presented a prejudicial question to the majority which had to be resolved before going on to the main task at hand, which was, of course, to dismiss the latest impeachment case against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as quickly as possible, while avoiding any opportunity for the charges and the evidence supporting them to be adequately discussed.

Defensor said the intervention was totally disparate from the impeachment complaint filed by Jose de Venecia III et al. Defensor, for some reason, pronounced disparate as “desperate,” which may have been one of those slips of the tongue that administration supporters seem susceptible to these days. But that slip was as nothing compared to the stunt he tried to pull off the day before.

He had wanted to dismiss our intervention outright, but Reps. Teofisto Guingona III and Darlene Antonino Custodio pestered him into backing off when it became known that he and his fellow bright old things in the majority hadn’t even read it. Defensor had to agree to postpone things. After all, “the appearance of legality must be preserved,” in the same manner as the craven Supreme Court justices had privately appealed to Marcos a generation previously.

But when he gaveled open the proceedings yesterday, Defensor was armed with his ruling, which was promptly put to the vote on a motion by Representative Domogan, with the enthusiastic support, in what was a kind of committee feeding-frenzy, of Representatives Garcia, Datumanong, Barzaga, Gonzales Jr., Castro, and Lagman. Representatives Casino and Maza tried to splash about to keep the great congressional sharks from tearing into our intervention. Representatives Golez and Mariano did likewise.

In response, Defensor and Lagman, who like to think of themselves as gentlemen of the old school, at least went through the motions of recognizing, if not actually acting upon, the principle of fair play they fully intended to violate, anyway. Defensor, by noting that our intervention could properly wait to be dispensed with after the impeachment complaint was dispensed with; Lagman, by pointing out that any intervention appeals to the tender mercies of the House, which has the full prerogative to agree or decline to take it up.

The air was thick with lofty references to the Constitution, to the rule of law, and to the paramount status of procedure, but this was part of the usual belching that precedes what has been preordained: going in for the kill.

In the end, four members of the minority voted against throwing out our intervention: Representatives Ocampo, Casino, and Maza, all of whom maintained their party positions to the end but who cast their votes in defense of the principle of justice and fair play; and Representative Binay of Makati who dared what even her fellow Makati representative, Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., once so vocal on the BJE-MOA but oh so silent this time around, could not be bothered to represent: accountability on the part of the chief executive.

I regret, but fully understand, Representative Hontiveros-Baraquel not lifting a finger, constrained as she is by Akbayan’s party position, aligned with Bayan’s, in favor of the President’s BJE-MOA scheme. But what I cannot understand was the silence of most of the Mindanao bloc, and the heretofore noisy majority-and-minority congressmen who had vigorously opposed the BJE-MOA but whose concern apparently ceased the moment the President, the cause of all their thunder and fury, lost in the Supreme Court and ducked for cover, passing the buck to her subordinates, while releasing the 2007 pork barrel.

Had we had the chance, we would have raised four simple points in defense of our intervention, an effort “to become a party to a legal proceeding begun by others in order to protect an alleged interest in the subject matter of the proceeding,” as one legal dictionary puts it.

1. The intervention is not a separate complaint involving a distinct cause of action but is another aspect of the original cause of action upon which the de Venecia impeachment complaint rests: President Arroyo’s culpable violation of the Constitution and breach of her oath as president.

2. The primary objective of the remedy of intervention is to avoid multiplicity of suits by allowing all related causes of action and issues to be resolved in one proceeding. Intervention was properly and timely made; the intervention did not cause any injustice to anyone; therefore it should not be denied. In fact, the ends of justice would be better served by granting the intervention, as public interest should predominate over technical or procedural considerations.

3. As citizens and taxpayers, it cannot be denied that intervenors have a legal right to ensure that the laws of the land are upheld, especially if the violator is a public official. Impeachment is a process of national inquest into the conduct of public officials and the bringing of charges against them for misconduct in office.

4. The intervention is based on judicial findings that were not yet made or in existence at the time of the filing of the original complaint. An “intervening cause,” i.e., the ruling on the unconstitutionality of the BJE MOA, justified its inclusion as one of the grounds for impeachment.

Allow me to pay tribute to my co-intervenors who fought the good fight: bloggers Marck Rimorin, Edwin Lacierda, Jeremy Gatdula, Arbet Bernardo, Ria Jose, Richard Rivera; and retired general Fortunato Abat, Pitch Mangondato, Jose Arce Jr. and Ed Bacungan.