De Quiros' Column

There's The Rub : Murder in the Batasan

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

I WAS at the Batasan [Legislature building] Monday night, hoping the deliberations on something so vital might echo the quality of the debate by the British Parliament some years ago on joining the war on Iraq. That debate was also a foregone conclusion -- Tony Blair was determined to be the "English poodle," their version of "tuta," making dogs the most maligned animal on earth -- but it drew forth some of the most moving speeches and sharpest exchanges I've heard. Much of it from the late Robin Cook, who rose to eloquent heights in damning the iniquity.

Alas, I found the Batasan version only a cure for insomniacs. I wondered if the ANC television channel was doing the country a favor by airing it in full: It offered prospective exiles yet another reason for leaving the country. To say that the Batasan floor looked like an unruly classroom is to insult unruly classrooms. While the (largely) pro-impeachment representatives delivered their privilege speeches, begging their colleagues heed the voice of history, their colleagues chatted loudly on cell phones, guffawed at their jokes, or greeted friends in the gallery. Unfortunately, I couldn't always say I blamed them. If the voice of history sounded anything like the speeches I heard, I too would be lulled to sleep. Maybe that's why we are.

Things took a more lively turn only past the witching hour, and I at least had the consolation of seeing the pro-Arroyo congressmen, who seemed to have imagined they'd have a walk in the park, punished by being made to stay in the session hall longer than they expected. I have to thank Francis Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano for that. They are two very fine young men who did a magnificent job in showing up the irony in the title "justice committee" and the phrase "rule of law." It was a justice committee that was resolved to wreak injustice and it was a rule of law that was committed to mob rule.

I can only hope neither of them abandons the capacity for idealism that goes with their so obvious gifts of articulation. I say this because I've seen so many people, young and old, use their talents to defend freedom one day and uphold oppression the next. In this country, the only thing more fickle than the weather is principle.

Escudero it is to whom we owe the contemplated iniquity being pushed back by several hours. Enough for the public who was watching TV at least, if not most of his colleagues who were watching only their backs, to know a battle between good and evil had taken place that night, and that though evil had won the battle then, good might still win the war tomorrow. It was Escudero who showed how the justice committee had conspired to withhold from the pro-impeachment representatives copies of what they were supposed to vote for until later that day. In the end, Simeon Datumanong, Luis Villafuerte and Edcel Lagman agreed to blame the committee staff for the lapse, a breathtaking lie that reminded the world of the same kind of breathtaking lie they were sworn to protect. I don't know how the Moros felt about one of their own reinforcing the already horrible racial profiling of Moros and Muslims. I myself felt deeply ashamed about being a Bicolano.

The next day, Congress murdered the impeachment move. Everyone was predicting it, of course, last Monday night, those fighting for it being filled with a sense of heroic despair, or desperate heroism. A friend, however, put it this way: "It won't be a murder, it will be a massacre. After all, we're not just talking about one bill, we're talking about three bills."

The speeches of those who agreed to commit that murder merely echoed the propositions of the justice committee report. They spoke of the need for this country to respect the law and its democratic institutions. They spoke of the need for this country to attend to poverty and the matter of national survival. They spoke of the need for this country to unite behind their decision and move on.

This country doesn't just have a monumental capacity to use law to thwart justice, it has a monumental capacity to employ the loftiest thoughts to commit the lowliest deeds. They forgot that the most hallowed democratic institution is the vote and that respecting the rule of law at its most elementary level means not picking up the phone in the dead of night and saying "Hello Garci," particularly in a distinctively and unctuously grating voice. They forgot that candidates who rob the voters of their votes do not go on to rule wisely and well but merely go on to rob the people of their wealth. They forgot that there is no honor among thieves, no nation has ever yet united and moved forward on the basis of wrongdoing.

As it was, the move to impeach President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was already a compromise, presuming as it did she was the president, albeit one who had betrayed the public trust. When by her own admission of having talked to "a Comelec official" while the counting was in progress (clue: he is nowhere to be found) she wasn't so by the very rule of law Congress has been pleased to invoke. If the move to impeach the President has served any useful purpose, it is only to show that, as in Marcos' time, the law that at least has to do with justice may no longer be expected from those who pass the law, who interpret the law, and who enforce the law. We have to go elsewhere to find it.

The murder in the cathedral of Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, by the king's men made Becket an even bigger figure than he was, turning him into a veritable saint. The murder in the Batasan of the impeachment move by the Queen's men has made ousting a putative president even more necessary than it's been, turning it into a veritable imperative.

It's the rule of law as well that no one may get away with murder.