I totally agree with Solita Monsod: The challenge to the Aquino administration is to “[d]o it the right way.” (Inquirer, 1/21/12)
After four days of impeachment hearing, the composite prosecution team still has to get it right and, by implication, also the 188 congressmen and the powerful hand that played them into their present predicament.
As Monsod said, doing it the right way is for the prosecution to do its homework, the senator-judges to keep their biases in check, and to litigate not in media but in the impeachment court.
For lawyer Alan Paguia, the right way is to conduct House hearings on the impeachment, evaluate the evidence and the testimony as to their sufficiency, and execute and verify the articles of impeachment as required in the Constitution and defined by Court rules. But it’s too late for that now. Incidentally, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ spokesperson, lawyer Trixie Angeles, agrees with Paguia that the impeachment is technically flawed.
In the case of Executive Order 1, the right way is to include all administrations past and present, so that it would not be declared unconstitutional for violation of the equal protection clause.
In the case of the Department of Justice’s hold-departure order (HDO) on former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the right way was to file a case that would provide the basis for a legally issued HDO. Trying to correct this fatal flaw, the DOJ managed to do the right thing the wrong way. Ironically, an electoral sabotage case would not have had to be railroaded, if the DOJ had acted on complaints pending there for over a year. Bayan Muna eventually moved the case to the Ombudsman.
The list goes on, and grows by the day. But what is most scary is if we miss the right on the economy. This is where, we all pray, Monsod could turn President Aquino’s attention to the right way.
—RAMON OCULAR,
monocular478@gmail.com