Lynch-mob rule in impeachment

THE ADMINISTRATION of President Benigno Aquino III is fueling a lynch-mob atmosphere over the effort to impeach Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez at all costs as the House of Representatives prepares to vote in plenary this week on the articles of impeachment it intends to send to the Senate for trial.

At the same time, the President has thrown the entire weight of his office to galvanize support in Congress for the impeachment drive which is likely to encounter difficulties in the Senate, which will act as an impeachment tribunal, where the votes in that 23-seat chamber are splintered.

The President’s Liberal Party holds only four seats in the Senate, far below the 16 votes needed to convict an impeached official, in this case Gutierrez. She needs only seven senators to vote against conviction.

Mr. Aquino has only a fragile hold in the Senate, and with many of the senators professing that they would act as independent jurors, not as political partisans, on the basis of evidence presented by the prosecution panel of the House during the trial.

Gutierrez has decided to stonewall and stand trial after the House committee on justice voted on March 8 that there was “probable cause” for impeachment for “betrayal of public trust,” alleged in two impeachment complaints against her, now consolidated into one, specifying the grounds for the move.

The administration has also stepped up pressure on Gutierrez to resign to avoid a bruising trial in the Senate.

Painful for whom?

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, a Malacañang ally, has urged Gutierrez to step down to “spare the country this conflict for the sake of justice and truth,” saying that resignation is one alternative open to the Ombudsman.

This line was echoed by Communication Secretary Ricky Carangdang who said that resignation “will spare the nation the trauma of having to go through a painful impeachment process.”

This immediately raised the question, painful for whom?

This line indicates either, first, that the administration is not confident that the Senate would convict Gutierrez on the basis of the evidence to be presented by the House prosecution, or, second, it is mounting a public opinion campaign to demonize Gutierrez in the belief that public opinion incited against Gutierrez would influence senators to vote for her conviction.

Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., chair of the House justice committee and prospective head of the House prosecution panel, has implicitly acknowledged that a lynch-mob trial by publicity would be crucial in influencing the senators, while at the same time he asserted that the prosecution would make a case for conviction on the basis of evidence and not on narrow partisan considerations.

Repercussions of acquittal

The administration is not unaware of the possible repercussions of an acquittal of Gutierrez by the Senate which, among others, would expose the weakness of Mr. Aquino’s leadership, and would expose his propensity to resort to disregarding due process in the effort to get rid of Gutierrez.

In the no-holds-barred and heavy-handed drive to impeach the Ombudsman, concerns have already been expressed that the “Hang Gutierrez” tenor of the campaign could damage a constitutional system based on the rule of law and not on the “rule of men”—no matter how well-intentioned is the administration to clean up corruption in government.

The President has not hesitated to twist the arms of his House allies to vote in the committee on justice to determine probable cause to impeach the Ombudsman. The vote followed his meeting with Liberal Party members last week in which he invoked the constitutional mandate of legislators to impeach based on probable cause.

The presidential lobbying pushed the committee to fast-track the preparation of the articles of impeachment, for introduction to the plenary, setting in motion the process of sending the articles to the Senate.

Question of credibility

Tupas has claimed that the House leadership has lined up more than 150 votes to impeach, more than the 94 required from the 283-memberr House.

He said that although among those who promised to vote to impeach 117 have pending graft charges in the Office of the Ombudsman, he was confident they would vote “not because of their personal bias but because they represent the will of the people in their districts.”

Some congressmen agreed with Tupas that those with pending cases with the Ombudsman, including Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, would vote based on the evidence presented by the committee, and “the strong public opinion in favor of impeachment.”

The fact that 117 congressmen have pending cases with the Ombudsman has allowed Gutierrez the issue of conflict of interest and to cast doubt on the credibility of congressmen to impeach on the basis of evidence and conduct a fair trial.

Another issue has been raised: If the evidence of the prosecution is strong, as it is claimed to be, why is it that the administration has launched a vilification campaign designed to swing public opinion behind it. In what way can it be measured? In the newspapers? Whose opinion being expressed is the most noisy?

It is claimed that impeachment is about evidence and determined by assessment of evidence through legal procedures. It cannot be discounted that the lynch-mob approach of the administration is a double-edged weapon. It seemed it has pushed her back to the wall and has forced her to fight back with her own evidence.

It is possible the impeachment could run aground in the recalcitrant Senate. The President is playing with fire in this game of lynchmanship.