Cynical politics?

The decision of the justice committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday to junk the three impeachment complaints filed against President Aquino did not come as a surprise. Indeed, we had earlier urged the committee members to “see the complaints for the political stunts that they are, and throw them out immediately.” Surely, not even the Makabayan bloc of representatives, who had individually endorsed the complaints, could have been taken unawares. The four Makabayan lawmakers who are members of the committee could not even muster support from any of the others in the minority. Why would they expect the majority coalition to postpone the moment of truth?

Their de facto spokesman, Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, complained against the majority using, well, the rule of the majority, to find each of the three complaints “insufficient in substance.” In the time of President Gloria Arroyo, he said, “the impeachment complaints against her reached three to four hearings. [With] President Aquino, two hearings. Are you rushing this?”

He directed the query at the committee chair, but perhaps the better question is: Was there a reason to delay the vote?

With the odds stacked against them, the Makabayan representatives could have done a better job at presenting the case for impeachment, but we think it is a fair summary of their arguments to say that they depended on the broadest possible meaning of “culpable violation” of the Constitution as their legal basis, reinforced by a simplistic view of impeachment as a merely political exercise.

Even if one grants, for the sake of argument, that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the unconstitutionality of the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program has become final, the mere fact that an Executive policy has been ruled unconstitutional does not mean that the Chief Executive committed a culpable (and thus impeachable) violation of the Constitution. That would make impeachment the rule rather than the exception it was designed to be.

There are other ways to hold the Chief Executive accountable; impeachment is not the only recourse. As to the notion (which we have all learned, since the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada) that impeachment is not purely legal but also political, the argument advanced by Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan best illustrates why the Makabayan bloc could not even gather support from other members of the minority.

The substance of one of her interventions was an exegesis of her oath of office, explaining what the key phrases meant. All good if the audience was a classroom-full of eager students, but a woeful waste of time in the corridors of Congress.

As we have argued earlier, the three impeachment complaints are premature, for asserting a fact that has not yet become final. In the first two, the constitutionality of aspects of the DAP is still under review, because the Supreme Court accepted the administration’s motion for reconsideration; in the third, the constitutionality of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement has not even been ruled on. The complainants could have done much better; as they stand, the complaints are mere rhetoric in search of substance. As we said of the complaints last July: “Their premises are premature, their logic strained. They take the self-serving statements of accused plunderers at face value; they trivialize the country’s harrowing experience with tyranny.”

This is not to say that the motives behind the committee members who voted to reject the complaints were all angelic; the adage about law and sausages applies to committee votes, too: “It is best not to see them made.” But having offered very weak complaints to begin with, the Makabayan bloc should have pulled out all the stops by addressing the concerns of their colleagues in Congress. Instead, as Ilagan’s intervention demonstrates and Colmenares’ remark proves, they tried only to make political capital, and were banking on “three or four hearings.” Cynical politics, in other words—the exact same kind they often claim to see in their colleagues’ conduct.