Gutierrez on the dock

MERCEDITAS GUTIERREZ is the first female ombudsman in the Philippines. She is the first non-elected official to face impeachment action in Congress in recent times. She is the first official appointed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to senior Cabinet level positions with judicial or quasi-judicial functions to face impeachment proceedings.

She is also the first important hold-over from the Arroyo administration to be held accountable by the reformist government of President Benigno Aquino III as part of his inauguration pledge to give the country “good governance.” An impeachment case has been initiated in the House of Representatives to make Gutierrez accountable for impeachable acts constituting “betrayal of public trust,” in the highest political tribunals in the land: the House of Representatives and the Senate. She is not facing trial for criminal offenses in a court of justice.

In these circumstances, the impeachment proceedings initiated against her cannot but be politicized—although procedures in Congress, first in the House to vote to impeach her and prepare the articles of impeachment, and then in the Senate, which sits as a tribunal to determine whether she is guilty or innocent of the charges, follow the rules of court in criminal trial. In this sense, the misfortune of Gutierrez is that she has become the center of the controversy over whether she performed her constitutional duties as the principal prosecutor of wrongdoing of the Arroyo administration or whether she acted to cover up these alleged venalities. In this transition from the Arroyo to the Aquino administration, the Gutierrez impeachment action has become a test case of the political will of the administration to purge the government of corruption by removing Arroyo officials embedded in independent constitutional bodies who could block its campaign against corruption.

We are not expecting a political circus in the Gutierrez case like we had in the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in the Senate. And yet the Gutierrez case is important in that it puts on trial the entire system of holding officials accountable to the people and its flaws. It highlights the issue of whether our impeachment process is capable of conducting a fair trial in the context of the undeniable condition that the entire impeachment proceedings—from the House to the Senate—are dominated by politicians in both the Executive and Legislative Departments and are conducted by a totally politicized body, Congress. The fate of Gutierrez in these processes is now less important than the issue of the capacity of institutional and constitutional bodies to give substance to the concepts of fair play and justice, and due process, to which any citizen of this republic is entitled.

There is danger that the impeachment proceedings could degenerate into a witch-hunt for people who are on the wrong side of the political divide to divert public attention from the growing disaffection with the current government over its inability to deliver results in its social and economic programs.

In some ways, the Gutierrez case has become an extended stage on which the Arroyo administration is also on trial. It will be subjected to further bashing, with Gutierrez taking the beating.

There is no doubt that the administration’s allies in the House have the numbers to ram through the plenary the articles of impeachment framed by the House committee on justice, which has decided that there is “probable cause” to dismiss Gutierrez for “betrayal of public trust” and “culpable violation of the Constitution”—omnibus charges whose specifications are contained in the consolidated two complaints.

In the complaint, Gutierrez is accused of having an “unconscionably low” conviction rate in cases, including the graft charges filed against Arroyo and her husband on their involvement in the $329-million NBN-ZTE deal, and the suspicious death of Navy Ensign Philip Pestaño. She is also accused of alleged inaction on the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, the “euro generals” scandal, and the Mega Pacific eSolutions contract with the Commission on Elections that was voided by the Supreme Court.

The vote in the committee on justice to send the complaints to the plenary for debate prior to their transmittal to the Senate for trial came after President Aquino put pressure on the House majority to speed up the impeachment process in Congress. In a meeting with Liberal Party members of the House last Tuesday, the President asked them to support the impeachment move. He reminded them of their mandate as legislators to serve as fiscals in the impeachment process and told them to determine if there was probable cause.

Justifying the President’s intervention, Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Mr. Aquino did not violate the separation of powers between the Executive and Congress. He said the President asserted his “moral leadership in determining the course for good governance.” Lacierda said the intervention was “part of the call for good governance.” The President’s message to the LP congressmen was “simple” and that was “we were voted by the people and our platform is ‘Tuwid na daan’.”

Lacierda didn’t have to say all that nonsense. It was straightforward enough to say that the President asserted his leadership as party leader and was calling the shots. The President didn’t have to explain that.