OVER THE last week or so, I’ve seen a number of stickers in cars that say “No Merci” and “Convict Merci.” The first time I saw one, I didn’t get elated, I got nervous.
I can understand the sentiments that may have gone into them. The authors may have just meant by that that the senators and the public ought to show zeal and vigilance in making sure things are done right. They may have just meant by that that it’s time the Senate produced a tangible result, notwithstanding that this is no ordinary Senate investigation, this is a trial with the senators as judges. They may have just meant by that that it’s time we changed the way we do things, which is to let every Pidal, Andal, and Daldal go free, and finally punished the guilty.
But that is not the message those stickers convey at all. Their danger lies in two things, which I already said when Ricky Carandang suggested a while back he was confident government’s allies in the Senate would bring in a conviction.
It was Serge Osmeña who retorted that if it was just a question of numbers or alliances, why bother to go through an impeachment trial at all? Why not just divide the house and ask for a show of hands, thereby saving time and money? The point of vigilance is simply to make sure that due process is upheld, with emphasis on both words, “due” and “process.” It is to make sure that the senators/judges are not blind to evidence or deaf to reason, which many of them were during Erap’s (former President Joseph Estrada) trial during Erap’s time. Heaven forbid the same would be true in Gutierrez’s trial during President Benigno Aquino III’s time. That’s what makes “No Merci” and “Convict Merci” scary. It doesn’t boom with zeal, it reeks of mob rule. At least it can easily be depicted as such.
Just as well, as I said before, that can turn Gutierrez into an underdog and gain her public sympathy. The spectacle of everyone ganging up on her, or pinagtutulong-tulungan as the Tagalog puts it, could make the public forget what she’s being accused of and make her look kawawa naman, babae pa naman,” even if she is her own worst enemy in that respect, not exactly cutting the figure either of kawawa or babae. This is a fickle culture, as shown by Erap’s own reversal of fortune from hero to heel, courtesy of the subliminal messages his own impeachment trial beamed to the public.
There is a fundamental difference between Erap’s and Gutierrez’s trials, which government’s supporters can’t seem to see. That difference is the government that is in power. If stickers like “Convict Erap” or “Paerapan si Erap” had appeared during Erap’s trial, they would not have had the same unsavory suggestions they do now. The odds then were stacked against Erap being convicted by the Senate, his being the dispenser of favors and spoils guaranteeing that the senator-judges he had showered with them would exert themselves to protect him. If Erap’s detractors had called upon the Senate to convict him or make life hell for him, it would have sounded only like a plea for them to overcome their biases.
Not so today. The government in power is President Aquino’s, and the odds are stacked in favor of the impeachment trial finding Gutierrez guilty. The last thing government’s allies in the Senate may be seen to do is prejudging the case or vowing conviction. The last thing government’s supporters may be seen to do is asking for Gutierrez’s head on a silver platter, particularly these next few days.
Government may find two things particularly worth learning from the Erap impeachment trial.
The first is that an impeachment trial is an exceptional opportunity to show how majestic the law can be, how grand due process can be. What made the Erap trial luminous was that it showed a country grown cynical that the law could be used to serve the ends of justice, that due process could be a process that gave people their due. For the first time in a long time, the kids wanted to become lawyers again, the kids dreamed of fighting dragons with lance and law again.
The new government doesn’t need that less, it needs that more. The campaign against corruption demands high moral ground, and you can’t have a moral ground, high or low, by conjuring a lynch mob, however you wrap it in legal robes. How Gutierrez is convicted is just as important, if not far more so, as her being convicted, if she is convicted at all. The prosecutors may not bank on sympathy to bail them out, they have to do their part. They have to show that President Aquino’s campaign against corruption rests on solid foundations, not the least of them the power of reason and strength of due process.
The second is that an impeachment trial is an exceptional opportunity to educate the public in the ways of democracy. The Erap trial never got to convict Erap, but it gave the public monumental insights into the nature of corruption and abuse of power, quite apart from the nature of law and its power to right wrongs. It turned the people into the real judge of that trial, far grander than Hilario Davide, who rendered their verdict in the end.
The point of Gutierrez’s trial is not just to convict her, if the prosecutors can make an ironclad case of it. It is to make the public see that corruption maims, that corruption kills, that corruption turns a country into the contents of a grave, where fester only rottenness and decay. It is to make the people find it so reprehensible they will not only rise to make sure the corrupt are punished but will exert themselves to make sure the corrupt do not seep into the pores of government like germs. If the Gutierrez trial can do that, I won’t particularly mind how long it takes. I grant that can make for a very long and very winding road.
But shortcuts won’t get us to where we’re going.