Marcoleta's True Colors

Posted by Luz Rimban 
PCIJ

THE "Hello, Garci" controversy and the impeachment process have exposed the seamy side of party-list politics and showed how supposed representatives of the marginal sectors of society may have been eaten up by what they themselves call "dirty politics." 

Wednesday night, ABS-CBN reporter Aladin Bacolodan interviewed ex Alagad party-list representative Diogenes Osabel, a former friend of impeachment-complaint-endorser Rep. Rodante Marcoleta. In that story, Osabel's main contention was that the party had expelled Marcoleta last year for failing to share congressional funding with Alagad and for refusing to consult with his party-list colleagues on vital issues. The expulsion, Osabel says, stripped Marcoleta of the right to sit as member of Congress and to endorse the first impeachment complaint. 

Osabel also added to what former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman revealed on Tuesday: that it was the Arroyo administration that put Marcoleta up to it as part of a "grand conspiracy" to thwart a genuine impeachment process.

In an interview with PCIJ, Osabel alleged that Marcoleta's close ties to the administration began when the party first filed a case before the Commission on Election months ago, asking the poll body to revoke Marcoleta's nomination as party list rep.  The Comelec's second division has washed its hands of the issue, saying it was the House Electoral Tribunal that had jurisdiction over the case, now on appeal at the Comelec.

Osabel alleges that this was how Marcoleta may have developed close ties with Garci himself, Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, and with Presidential Political Affairs Adviser Gabriel Claudio. With a case pending before the Comelec and placed in a vulnerable position of possibly losing his seat, Marcoleta may have struck a deal with the administration.

"This guy (Marcoleta) would do anything to survive," Osabel said.

Not true, according to Marcoleta, who denies he and Garci are friends. In fact, Marcoleta told PCIJ, it was Comelec Commissioner Mehol Sadain and not Garci who handled the Comelec case. "I know them (Comelec commissioners) by name only. As for Garcillano, ngayon ko lang nakita yun with this Garci tapes controversy (The first time I saw Garcillano was in connection with the Garci tapes controversy)," Marcoleta said.

Marcoleta has tossed back the accusations to Osabel, a friend of Soliman and former official of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, who Marcoleta claims has hung on to power,  refused to give up the party presidency for the past seven years and was actually the one disowned by Alagad. What's more, Marcoleta said, there's a reason ABS-CBN gave Osabel airtime. Marcoleta cites a House resolution his erstwhile partymate Osabel filed in 2000 asking the water utility office MWSS to help bail out Maynilad water, a company that like ABS-CBN is owned by the influential Lopez family.

Osabel, however, insists that the point is Marcoleta's role in the impeachment process. If indeed Marcoleta was not a pawn of the administration, why did he not cast a vote in favor of the "sufficiency in form and substance" of the original impeachment complaint?

Osabel asks: Why did Marcoleta allow the majority to dismiss the original Lozano complaint, the very complaint that he endorsed on June 29?  What did Marcoleta do to defend what to civil society was the "legal, proper and peaceful" manner of resolving the political crisis?

Once upon a time, all of them—Marcoleta, Osabel and Soliman—were on one side of the fence, counting themselves part of civil society. These days civil society has been wracked by dissension and power struggles. Some of its members have gone their separate ways and are far from civil.

Arangkada for September 2, 2005

 

SYUT TANG TANAN

 

         Maayo natong pagkasud sa bolsa.  Di lang kitang ordinaryong mga molupyo.   Kon dili hastang dagkong mga politiko ug mga negosyante.  Apil na ganing mga obispo.

         Nitoo tang tanan sa pasalig ni Presidente Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo nga di siya mokanaog sa katungdanan kay iyang tubagon ang mga pasangil nga iyang gigamit ang payola sa jueteng aron pagtikas sa eleksiyon sa niaging tuig pinaagi sa impeachment proceedings sa Kongreso.   Nakumbinser ta nga di mamugos sa iyang resignasyon aron kahatagan siyag higayon pagpanalipod sa iyang kaugalingon.

         Pero natinuod ang dako natong kahadlok:  Nga ang presidente, human nakigkonsabo sa jueteng lords ug sa mga kukhan nga tiglubag sa eleksiyon, mohimo sa tanan aron pagluok sa kamatuoran.

-o0o-

         Pagsugod pa lang gani sa impeachment proceedings sa House Justice Committee, ang mga kongresista sa administrasyon hingpit nga nisandig sa ilang mayoriya aron pagpamugos sa mga maniobra nga makaribal sa labing salawayon nga mga paugat sa nangalisbong kasaysayan sa politika sa nasud.   Inay hatagan og higayon ang mga namasangil pagpresentar sa ilang mga saksi ug ebidensiya aron matubag ni Presidente Arroyo, ang mga kongresista nga klarong under-the-bunal sa Malakanyang, matinud-anong nisunod sa script pagsabotahe sa proseso:

§       Namugos sila sa ilang katungod pagpili sa pasangil nga tubagon sa presidente;

§       Ilang gipili ang labing huyang sa tulo ka impeachment complaints nga gipasaka; ug

§       Wa pa gani kabawi ang publiko sa ilang kakurat sa papating sa mga kongresista, gibasura dayon ang kaso nga ilang napilian.

-o0o-

         Sa ato pa, kon di kapugngan ang binuang nga salida sa administrasyon, mabasura ang tulo ka impeachment complaints tungod lang sa technicality.   Bahala na kon wa idili sa mga lagda, ug modako untang kahigayonan nga mapatigbabaw ang kamatuoran, kon gitugotan pang mahiusa ang tanang pasangil aron matingob pagtubag sa presidente, ug mapapas ang tanang pagduda sa ka-lehitimo sa iyang mandato.

         Ang presidente nga nangahas pagamit sa ngan sa Ginoo aron pag-insistir nga lunsay ang iyang kadaogan sa niaging eleksiyon, kansang mga torotot niinsistir nga ang tanang mga saksi sa oposisyon binayran ug bakakon ug ang ilang mga ebidensiya minao-mao, wa gyod diay bisan gamay na lang pagtahud sa proseso nga kanunayng gihapin sa iyang pagpamugos pagpabilin sa katungdanan.

-o0o-

         Karong na-syut na tang tanan sa bolsa, igo na ba lang tang maglingu-lingo, mangiyugpos ug magpakahilom?   O mosuki, mokisikisi ug manlimbasog paglingkawas sa laang nga atong nasudlan?

         Nagpabiling kalma ang katawhan atubangan sa pakauwaw sa administrasyon tungod sa saad sa mas malinawong resolusyon nga gisaad sa impeachment proceedings ug sa kakuwang og kaligdong sa mga nangu sa kampanya pagpalagpot sa presidente.

         Tungod sa bastos nga pagluok sa impeachment complaints, ang katawhan mahimong mapugos paghangop sa mga solusyon nga di hingpit nga malinawon ug mga lider nga di hingpit nga ligdong.   [30]  leo_lastimosa@abs-cbn.com

              

Minority Walkout

The Long View : The walkout by the minority

Manuel L. Quezon III
Inquirer News Service

SO it's possible, after all, to squeeze blood from a turnip. The opposition has been hobbled, from day one of the impeachment fight by the actions of lawyer Oliver Lozano. He may not be known as a splendid lawyer, but he certainly has a keen sense of how to hog the headlines. His complaint has hounded the process every step of the way, leading to the legal and linguistic contortions we've seen in the House.

By all accounts, the Black & White forum was supposed to help influence wavering congressmen to sign the amended complaint. At first blush, the forum disappointed most observers. But then the Palace stepped in only to draw more attention to Dinky Soliman's revelations, the most important of which was her claim to having overheard President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo discussing the Lozano complaint with Secretary Gabby Claudio.

As soon as the Palace saw that no documents or hard evidence would be revealed, they proceeded to attack Soliman and friends. Their tactic: reduce the debate to a "he said, she said" series of pots calling kettles black. In such a game, the administration doesn't have to win, it only has to throw enough mud around. That it did.

What neither side gambled on, perhaps, was the ability of the congressmen themselves to put two and two together, and then, the clumsiness of the majority.

More explosive than Soliman's revelation (of the President's instruction for Claudio to deliver an endorser, and Claudio's instant reaction that he had just the right party-list representative in mind) was a reminder that Lozano had also saved then Vice President Arroyo from impeachment by filing a bogus impeachment complaint in 2000. The clincher in the conspiracy theory was the fact that it was Rep. Prospero Pichay, the lead attack dog of the majority, who endorsed Lozano's complaint then. To the observer, this was the most damning detail.

Then there was the case of the impatient engine driver. If the majority had allowed last Tuesday's justice committee hearings to proceed with ample opportunities for the members of the minority to scream and yell, it could then say they were being spoil sports, because the majority could have proceeded with a vote, and then sneered at the minority for failing to come up with the necessary 79 signatures. And it could have argued that there remained the opportunity for the minority to challenge the majority decision in plenary.

Apparently, it did not enter the minds of the members of the majority that they were relying on a committee chair (Rep. Simeon Datumanong) who had already irritated and frustrated his colleagues because of his weak parliamentary skills and, at times, amusing hearing problem. By nature an easy-going sort of fellow, Datumanong forgot he was dealing with young hotheads.

The clincher was the decision of Datumanong to suspend the debate, thus cutting off Rep. Ace Barbers. Earlier, Datumanong had turned off the microphone on minority representatives when they tried to bring up contentious issues (Soliman's revelation; and the fact that only the "amended" complaint has been properly verified and, therefore, the only one that should be discussed). So Datumanong's scatter-brained and suddenly inflexible behavior was enough to get the minority angry and upset. It was bad politics, because he could have subjected Rep. Robert "Ace" Barbers' motion to a vote and then asked the minority to make its closing statement.

To make things worse, upon summarily ending the debate, Datumanong moved to put the first of the prejudicial questions to a vote. To top it all, he ignored the last-minute attempts of some minority members to make a motion to adjourn (in parliamentary practice, such a motion trumps all other motions, and cannot be ignored). And so, the walkout. Everyone knew a walkout was an option; it had been discussed for weeks. The majority failed to give the minority an excuse for such a move.

Things then moved so fast that neither those in the Session Hall or those watching on TV or listening to radio quite knew what was going on; the television channel ANC immortalized the event as "pandemonium."

Actually, for weeks now, it was said that the minority would do a walkout, either with or without Susan Roces. Rep. Edcel Lagman claims the opposition was set to walk out anyway after the disposition of the second prejudicial question.

So, it means the surprise was that the members of the minority walked out sooner than expected. Why did they do that? Rep. Darlene Custodio's explanation seems quite plausible.

What did the majority do? It hung around, waiting for the minority to come back. Then the minority held a press conference, appealing for signatures, and saying it was fed up and would no longer participate in the committee meeting. The attitude of the minority having been made clear, what did the majority do?

It made the biggest mistake of all. It proceeded to vote on the prejudicial question. It could have waited for cooler heads to prevail. It did not. It proceeded to justify the minority's belief that it was out to railroad events. It held the vote, and won the vote -- though some, like Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., who remained behind, voted against the motion in disgust (you could clearly see it in Locsin's face as he sat while everyone else stood up to show their approval of the disposition of the prejudicial questions).

When this is all argued and counter-argued in the days to come, the question of the minority's sincerity -- was it planning a walkout all along? -- will be answered by two things: the twitching, angry faces of Custodio and friends, versus the railroaded vote that proceeded even after the minority left the hall.