Lame ducks

One, the Surgeon General has determined that watching the impeachment trial can be hazardous to your health. It can often be the most stressful thing there is, and not for the reason that it is so frenetic and suspenseful it can ravage your heart. In fact the opposite is true. It can often give you the sensation of being stuck in traffic. Which is the most stressful thing there is.

You get the same sensation of getting nowhere. You get the same sensation of powerlessness. You get the same sensation of wasting your time. The last becoming more oppressive when you get to be a senior citizen. That was what I felt last Monday.

It took some time for Elpidio Barzaga to present documents the defense had already agreed to without question. And it took some time for Serafin Cuevas to raise all sorts of objections and the court to thresh out procedural points. It was past 3 p.m. when Kim Henares finally got on with her testimony.

Part of the reason for it was the convoluted language of which had Juan Ponce Enrile, Cuevas, Barzaga and Henares misunderstanding each other at several points. No wonder friends of mine have been saying things of late like, “Do you concur with the manifestation of this representation?” when all they mean is, “Do you agree with me?”

But that’s a ploy—and result—that may not be entirely unintended by defense. The less Henares is heard, the better for them. Or the more they interrupt Henares, the better for them. Quite simply, Henares is the best witness prosecution has had by far. Quite simply Henares’ testimony is the best thing prosecution has had by far.

Her return to the stand saved the day for prosecution after a disastrous last week that had them parading Megaworld officials to show Corona was not beyond being bribed. Naturally, the Megaworld officials went out of their way to prove the opposite.

This time around, Henares—despite the interruptions—managed to contend discrepancies in Corona’s SALN. For almost a decade, he did not report many of his properties, running into tens of millions. For almost a decade, he undervalued the properties he did report, running into tens of millions. That is falsifying tax declarations. That is defrauding the citizens. That is betraying public trust.

Prosecution would do well to exploit their strengths, not their weaknesses.

Two, if Corona is acquitted, will P-Noy end up being a lame-duck president? That’s what Kit Tatad said before the trial resumed last Monday.

Well, the implications of Corona being restored to his station are enormous.

First is that it will show that while government’s heart is in the right place, its head is not. Or more specifically, while its politics is in the right place, its law is not. That will impact on how it means to prosecute, in more ways than one, its agenda of cleaning up this country.

Of course the problem is not just legal, it is also political. The senator-judges are not likely to vote on the strength of the arguments, they are likely to vote on the strength of self-promotion or survival.  But it helps to produce a convincing argument to put them on the spot, voting against it constituting wrongheadedness of epic proportions with implications on their electoral ambitions. As far as this goes, I do hope prosecution challenges that notion that you need to show the Chief Justice has committed a “high crime” and not just an ordinary crime to boot him out. What’s this, it’s OK that our chief dispenser of justice is just a petit criminal and not a big-time one?

Second is that it will make it all the harder, if not impossible, to jail Arroyo for a scale of crime next only to Marcos. How can you convict her if you have the Supreme Court against you, with its head now reveling in newfound power from having the Senate’s nod to do as he pleases? If the Supreme Court can reverse a case it has ruled upon with finality three times, such as that of PAL’s flight attendants, it can certainly do the same thing for its patron. In fact, it may not even get to that. The Supreme Court can always, and probably will, allow Arroyo to leave for abroad. It won’t even need a TRO this time. Basta lang, the Senate has spoken, the Supreme Court’s word is law.

Third is that we will be thrown back to Arroyo’s time where we presume that public officials deserve to be there not because they are meritorious but because no one can prove them to be crooks and swindlers. As it is, I don’t know how far we’ve gotten away from it. You can glean that from the Inquirer survey that says most Filipinos do not think the Senate will convict Corona. If you compare that with other surveys by the Inquirer and the professional survey-makers which say that most Filipinos think Corona is guilty as sin, you are left with the conclusion that Filipinos continue to have a cynical view of the law. They do not believe that law is on the side of the angels. They do not believe that the law is on the side of justice. They believe that law, and not patriotism, is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Will all this make P-Noy a lame-duck president?

Maybe. But far more certainly, it will make us a lame-duck people. It will make the Philippines a lame-duck country. It will make it impossible for us to rid ourselves of corruption. It will make saying “Never again!” to tyranny an exercise in futility. It will turn us from the sick man of Asia to the Peking duck of Asia.

It’s not without sublime irony. Shortly before the 2009 presidential campaign started, everyone was saying Arroyo had become a lame-duck president. Well, that same lame-duck president managed to appoint a Chief Justice in the midnight hour, in the witching hour, in the lame-duck hour.

Who turned out to be as lame and ducky as she is.