GOTCHA, Published in The Philippine Star, Wednesday, November 14, 2007
If what people suspect about them is true, Atty. Roel Pulido and Rep. Edgar San Luis must be very happy now. Their alleged sinister designs are coming true. As predicted Congress upheld as sufficient in form the sham impeachment case they had filed and endorsed respectively against Gloria Arroyo. It was all part of their ploy in rustling up an empty rap against the President before the opposition could draft a real one. When oppositionist Adel Tamano tried to save the day by fortifying the three-page Pulido-San Luis scrap with 38 pages of evidence, Congress, again expectedly, rejected him. Tomorrow the last act of the charade will unfold for sure. Congress will declare the work of Pulido and San Luis as what it really is: insufficient in substance. And so Arroyo will be spared 12 months of indictment, under the constitutional rule of one impeachment complaint per year per official. Just like what happened same time 2005 and 2006.
Notably fellow-lawyers who had read Pulido’s complaint were one in concluding that it cannot even be called such. A complaint is supposed to contain allegations of the ultimate facts, not conclusions as Pulido makes. Notably too fellow-congressmen doubt San Luis for endorsing a shabby opus. An endorser is supposed to have studied a real complaint and is convinced of probable cause, not just out “to find out if it’s true,” as San Luis says of the rap. Incidentally, it’s all about rash judgments that since a Cabinet man had warned Arroyo about bribery in the broadband deal, yet she still signed it, then she must be part of the bribery. Tamano had to append crucial testimonies to bolster the charge that Arroyo probably was in on it.
Pulido and San Luis of course tried to disguise their ruse. Political gofers must playact to screen disgusting roles. When the duo presented their hurried complaint, the immediate impression was that they had succeeded Oliver Lozano and Rodante Marcoleta as the new lawyer-congressman tandem of impeachment fakers. Pulido and San Luis sought to live down the shady image. They went about town claiming they would welcome any move to toughen their admittedly feeble charge sheet. When Tamano took the bait, they quickly embraced his supplementary case as their face-saver. A photo in The STAR yesterday showed Pulido and San Luis in a huddle with him, as if they intensely were planning how to make Congress accept their amended rap. Nice drama.
But it was all for show. People will not forget that easy what Pulido and San Luis did. They had presented a fake complaint to begin with, which was why Tamano had to step forward and try to repair it. If they feigned cooperation, people could see through it. Pulido and San Luis can very well be the rats in the race that Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora rues the impeachment has degenerated into. Defending his rebuff of Tamano’s appendix, justice committee head Mat Defensor says the Congress minority had all the time to file its own impeachment rap but didn’t, so Pulido and San Luis scurried in. He’s in effect confirming the rat race. Incidentally, Defensor is all praises for the sham document. His committee’s debates today, sans the minority that walked out of the charade, will show why.
Next year the duo just might do it again — rustle up another fake rap against Arroyo to preclude the real thing. Or some other tandem will try to beat them to it. For, there’s big money in it. Remember, Malacañang operators had offered six opposition congressmen P2 million each to sneak in an inoculating impeachment rap versus Arroyo. It is against that backdrop that Pulido and San Luis have earned their place in history’s dustbin.
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Speaking of which, what ever happened to that attempt to bribe six congressmen? Two of the six already have identified the corruptors: officers no less of Arroyo’s Kampi party. Leaders of both the majority and minority have denounced the criminal act that tainted Congress. The House of Reps ethics body has vowed to investigate. So how come nothing’s going on?
A deputy Speaker from the same Kampi party has admitted that it was she who distributed P500,000 each to congressmen breakfasting in Malacañang last Oct. 11. She swears that the party chairman and president, a former and an incumbent congressman, knew about the cash being given out while they were talking about thwarting Arroyo’s impeachment.
