House pulls off ‘fast-kill’

I had always believed that the impeachment complaint filed by Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano would eventually end up kaput. But I never expected the House committee on justice casting the die as hastily as it did. In cockfighting parlance—with which, incidentally, many of our congressmen are familiar, anyway—“fast-kill” is the name of such a gallant feat.

And so, I sincerely commiserate with Alejano who shouted his voice hoarse before the media, saying the congressmen had railroaded the junking of his complaint. We can all agree—meaning, those of us who watched the House panel proceedings on television—that Alejano was perfectly right in his accusation, if we consider the following facts.

In the initial phase of the session, it was quite obvious from their respective manifestations that more than the majority of the justice committee members were of the opinion that the complaint was insufficient in form. As a matter of fact, one of them even opined that they should probably already dismiss the complaint at that juncture.

But then, another congressman argued that the House rules were silent on whether or not they could indeed summarily dismiss the complaint on mere insufficiency in form. The rules, he said, clearly allow outright dismissal only after the complaint has been declared insufficient in substance and that, being found insufficient only in form, the complaint will have to be sent back to complainant for revision or fixing and then refiled.

Clearly realizing that the revision and refiling process may yet take several more days, the committee chair suspended the proceedings for a while so they could hold an executive session and reconsider the ambiguous House rules. When the proceedings resumed, wasn’t it monumentally surprising that alongside the initial, nearly unanimous opinion of the lawmakers, the committee suddenly found the complaint to be sufficient in form?

And so, they proceeded without further ado and, finally declaring the complaint as insufficient in substance, effectively dismissed it. Alas and alack, if the above process is not railroading the impeachment complaint, I do not know what is.

Well, there is one moral lesson that Alejano must have learned: President Duterte would not have been recently voted by Time Magazine as the world’s most influential person if he could not convince or influence Congress—be it openly, secretly, discreetly, silently, through sheer body language or without even lifting a finger—to say NO to all the impeachment complaints against him, at least this year if not throughout his constitutional term.
RUDY L. CORONEL
rudycoronel [email protected]