Force to Resign or Impeach

The impeachment trial is really a show that the Filipino people are now watching every day. It seems that some are entertained, amused, educated, laughed, and stupefied. By the way, annotators from different made their commentaries, as if we are watching a boxing show. The punches and counter-punches of the prosecution and the defense team are sometimes lethal and sometimes foul. Both party, would like to knockout each other as early as the first round. The referees and judges of the fight as per observation by some parties seem to have a bet as early as now. Thus, it goes to the point that objectivity of the jurors will be considered if ever the fight goes to distance.

If you were an objective critical thinking spectator, maybe you can have your own analysis about the prosecutions delivery of argument and the defense presentation of the rule of law. But, sadly to say not all our countrymen are trained to critically think and objectively judge. The manner on how our day-to-day lives are manipulated by the concept of idiotization of the giant media networks. This is manifested on how our electorate decides in choosing the leaders of our Nation. On that point, perception on how the electorate choose our leaders manifest also the way on how they voice their opinions on issues confronting the nation.

The present system for one at this point in time creates a perception among the idiotized majority. Idiotized majority in a way,

• that these people were made to believe that President is popular based on 1000 respondents representing 91 Million Filipinos,
• that these people were also given false hopes that for them to climb up out of poverty is fall in line in game show that gives thousand and millions of pesos,
• that people were given the impression that there is no terrorism despite the beheading of nineteen soldiers in Basilan, and the sporadic ambushes and killings of military personnel and some civilian sympathizers by CPP/NPA/NDF and MILF,
• that people were made to believe that by watching these giant networks, they can forget the predicaments in their daily lives,
• that these people made to understand that electing the popular rather that the credible would uplift their lives,
• that people were given false hope that for them to be Millionaire, they need to bet on LOTTO, while some PSCO officials were using the government funds in a questionable manner as investigated by the Senate in their inquiries, and
• that these people were blinded in the reality of the “matuwid na daan”, despite the numerous unconstitutional decisions and blunders such as the giving of financial aid to the enemies of the state and the recent railroading of the Corona impeachment.

Those are the only few manifestation that we can say that an idiotized majority is existing, for sure I know that you can add some in the enumerated above. But among those that I enumerated, the last item is indeed very alarming, specifically the Corona Impeachment.

At present, some bias and paid media were evangelizing the manifestation that Corona is a thorn to national development for the reason that he is a puppet of the previous administration. But, will that be enough to crucify him. The answer is No, which is why the 188 Speed Reading Congressmen, signed an Impeachment Complaint with Eight Articles of Impeachment, stating numerous allegations that the Chief Justice must be remove from office for he has no moral ascendancy to head the Judiciary.

During the impeachment trial, I was surprised when the prosecution opted to present Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment instead of Article 1. The defense team objected but as usual a partisan Senate would not like to hear arguments of law, logic and common sense. The ruling is to continue with the presentation of evidences and witnesses based on Article 1. When these witnesses were presented to the court, there goes the manifestation that many Senator-Judges seems to be not objective anymore. The request of the first witness who is the Clerk of Court of the Supreme Court to ask permission from the Supreme for her to turn-over the Statement of Asset, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) on the premise that there is an existing resolution in the office where she is connected prohibiting the disclosure of the (SALN) without due permission. Circuses of arguments among the Senator-Judges were delivered just to make a point that the witness must turn-over the said SALN. There is one Senator who states that the Impeachment Court is much supreme than that of the Supreme Court during Impeachment Trials. Lot of laughs among the intellectual few on that statement. Comedy indeed is happening in the impeachment trial. The only Senator-Judge that I notice who is really a statesman is Senator Joker Arroyo. He asked for one day only just for the witness to be given a chance to ask permission from the Supreme Court in order not to come up a dilemma of a Battle Royale between the two branches of government. He even manifest that there is a pending petition in the Supreme Court to stop the Impeachment Trial due to many legal points and argument. But sadly to say again, such manifestation was not taken into consideration by his bias colleagues. From then on, other witnesses were presented by the prosecution, and as always objections were raised by the defense team, and as usual it is always overruled.

On the observation of the some critically thinking Filipinos, it seems that the prosecution is not ready on their evidences on all the Articles of Impeachment. The obvious manifestation is when they opted to start with Article 2 instead of Article 1. But when they present Article 2 they were caught in their negligence. The prosecution team even state that it is the first time that they see that SALN of the Chief Justice. These 188 Congressmen subscribed and sworn that the Chief Justice based on the Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment which states that,

Respondent committed culpable violation of the Constitution and/or betrayed the public trust when he failed to disclose to the public his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth as required under Section. 17, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution.

How can these 188 Congressmen subscribed and sworn on this allegation when their fellow Congressman states during the trial that it is their first time to see the SALN. These congressmen do commit perjury by signing the impeachment complaint. Simple common sense will tell us that they cannot manifest that the Chief Justice failed to disclose to the public his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth, when they themselves haven’t seen the SALN of the Chief Justice.

In a simple search for a conclusion on this phenomenon based on the above stated premises, the way how the prosecution behaved in the court and in media, it seems that the architect of this Corona impeachment thing failed in his true objective. The real objective as per my simple analysis is not to bring Corona to the impeachment court. But, rather to force Chief Justice to resign his post, the mastermind of this plot did not expect that the Chief Justice will fight to the end. They misread Chief Justice Corona as a weak public servant that will be bothered by the different bombs against him in media, insulting and maligning his family. This is the reason why the prosecution does employ the dirty tactic of having the family of the Chief Justice to be in the witness stand in order to add more mental suffering to the Chief Justice, hoping that he will resign if he saw his family member being insulted thru cross-examination by the prosecution. But, it didn’t happen the impeachment court denied the prosecution’s motion to subpoena the Corona family members based on legal doctrines.

As obvious, people will really notice that they are not ready in the impeachment trial. They wrongly foresee that the Chief Justice would resign out of emotional pressures and public ridicule to his name thru media and public perception. The mainstream giant media networks have already convicted the Chief Justice even before the start of the impeachment trial. The prosecution even hired private lawyers to represent the prosecution team. This is really a clear expression by the prosecution that they lack the legal armory to pin down the Chief Justice.

Now, that the impeachment trial is in progress, the question is, how will the prosecution sustained the damage they have done due to their wrong foresight that the Chief Justice will resign? Can they dig more evidences to justify all their allegations in the eight articles of impeachment? So many questions will be raised out on this turn of events. The miscalculated move of this impeachment brouhaha have backfired to these 188 Congressmen, specifically the members of the prosecution team, which is obviously using this impeachment trial as their jumping board for re-election or aspiration to a higher position. We really do not know what will happen next; specifically there are exposes about Jose Maria Sison return to our country, the rumored revolutionary government, the documented creeping communist invasion, the Mindanao sub-state and so on. But for sure, the result of this impeachment trial is that there are no winners, all are loser. The question is who is the BIGGEST LOSER?

The Filipino Nation is the BIGGEST LOSER. The Filipino People that everyday are worrying where to get the food that they will eat. But sadly to say, the idiotized majority is just open to the old statement BAHALA NA. While the Telenovela of the giants networks conditioned the mind of the idiotized majority to wait for a week or day for the next episode. That is why in this CORONAVELA, we do not know what would be the outcome and moves of this government. Filipino spectators would only be advised to see what would happen. ABANGAN ANG SUSUNOD NA KABANATA…

Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope

National President

1st Philippine Pro-Democracy Foundation, Inc.

drteope@yahoo.com