bencard and cat often return to the reality that impeachment, under the present constitution, has never been easier -yet unattainable twice so far. we disagree on the reasons why this is so.

i do think the majority in the house, everything considered (and the ultimate consideration was the pork barrel, something estrada denied congressmen and so it made going against him so much easier at the time), had a point when the minority complained of the way the impeachment rules for the 13th congress had been put together. they were crafted so as to make the presentation of evidence something that would take place only after the consideration of the charges. i pointed out that in the case of quirino, for example, before the charges were tackled in terms of form or substance, the evidence was presented and publicly so. and since impeachment is a political process, the use of the president’s majority then as now, was perhaps inevitable but much more understandable -and less debatable.

not so, now, and as the majority pointed out, the minority acceeded to the rules because they thought the procedure wouldn’t matter, they could get the public upset enough and drive the president from office.

but in that political calculation the experience of the 2000-2001 impeachment was forgotten, as were the lessons from 1986: a people power moment, as teddyboy locsin angrily pointed out, cannot be manufactured. it can be helped along, but you cannot speed up its ripening.

that being said, the question for any leader in the face of a challenge is to fight or flee; the president i think deserves criticism and continued opposition for simply turning her back on two decades of democratic rebuilding. she was free to reject calls for her resignation, but she then threw every obstacle in the path of vindicating herself: and there were ample means to do so, whether from a truth commission, a proper impeachment, or even asking congress to appoint a special prosecutor.

she could have been proactive and not reactive -proactive is what fvr, much as i criticize him, tried to be in 2005. he tried to identify a way forward and it could have been a winning formula, but ultimately his proposal required too much sacrifice, not only of the senate but of the president herself. and even from the house.

so we remain divided, both sides who have opted to declare for or against the president in a kind of war of attrition, while the public itself that was not on either side had made its preferences known: in favor of impeachment, not in favor of taking to the streets, against hammering the senate, against the senate fighting back but not doing anything else, unexcited about the leadership options from the vice-president on down, against military force resolving matters, against the gratuitous use of the police power, for a peaceful means, and above all else, keeping things within a democratic framework.

the recently concluded election had a lot of people staying away, not least because not much could be expected of a situation where the comelec is the same one that discredited itself in 2004, and where the leadership options again, would be uninspiring -but it voted in favor of a more aggressive new bunch of senators because the public doesn’t feel the president deserves any slack or favors -and until the process is made to work, then things might as well slide until 2010 when the president is well and trulty out of the picture -and make no bones about it, the public was prepared not to tip the balance either way from 2005 onwards, but an extension for the president isn’t in the cards, and the public came closest to a revolt when the house seemed poised to even take away the emotional outlet (and test of whether institutions discredited after 2005 could redeem themselves) of the 2007 elections.

the comelec’s failed to redeem itself. so has the palace. those gambling on the palace’s resources have seen its limitations. the new senate will be on probation. other groups have redeemed themselves, namely the watchdogs from namfrel to the ppcrv, even the survey firms and media.

personally i’m skeptical anything drastic will change unless something fantastic (as in beyond belief) like sneaking in chavit singson or mike defensor or suddenly and majorly overturning what’s emerging as an 8-2-2 result takes place (even a 7-3-2 at this point will raise eyebrows). i don’t even know if reviving charter change by the end of the year will convince the public of anything beyond what it already expects from the palace, which is bad faith. but it will lead to simply, a stubborn continuation of the confrontation that began in 05.

AMEN.

Me and my nephew are not fluent with filipino/tagalog, bisaya man mi. We don’t even have to be a high school/college graduates to distinguish right from wrong.

You and majority of the commenters here are tremendously outraged by GMA’s alleged cheating. So am I. I am even more disappointed that her sons and in-law are occupying seats in congress. I am against political dynasty/nepotism.

Despite escudero’s “lackluster performance as a legislator” and being a representative of erap/fpj, instead of sorsogon, why did people vote for him? The only visible acomplishment he & cayetano did was to grandstand and get noticed in the media.

Despite honasan and trillanes’ acts of mutinee. Why were they voted for? When sonny boy was tried in court, he kept on insisting that the oakwood mutinee was merely an oakwood INCIDENT. If he becomes a senator, just imagine how he would justify his irregularities by mere OCCURENCES.

On one hand, we focus too much on GMA next moves (too many soothsayers). On the other, we tolerate other politicians’ wrongdoings?

I believe all of us want to rid our country of corruption and all forms impropriety. We want a better future for us and our children’s. Let’s be consistent. Aside from GMA, let us make others accountable for their wrong doings:

- The biggest of them all is marcos and his heirs
- behest loanees enrile, disini, cojuangco, etal
- tax evader lucio tan & the likes
- murderers honasan, lacson, etc
- plunderer erap and his accomplice
- corrupt militarymen and mutineers
- political dynasty families & disarm their private armies

Let us make past and present politicians (president downwards) make known to the public how their pork money were spent or where account they went.

You want objectivity, let’s go after ALL all of them NOT just ONE.

so what’s your point? your nephew has imbibed english as a first language. naturally we expect him to be fluent in that. but does he have the gab of fluency to speak filipino as a second language? besides no where in edwin’s thread did he mention which language soothes his üneducated” ears.

“Most importantly, my nephew can distinguish right from wrong.”

apparently you are making your own subjective judgment, and therefore the better introspection to ask is can you distinguish right from wrong?”

edwin:

“Im just trolling and venting my anger.”

feel free to express it, edwin. indifference is only for the living dead.

“…listen to how Escudero talk, calm and with an UNEDUCATED EARS LIKE I HAVE,he sure sounds like a man with common sense.”

INSOFAR AS INSOFAR-AS-IS-CONCERNED IS CONCERNED, escudero has indeed lots of common sense to a lot of UNEDUCATED EARS that listen to him.

I dont fcuking think so.

Nobody can move forward if the we dont believe in the driver of the car. Nobody can start the nation building if we dont even have the sense to lay the proper foundation. the reason why I think a lot of people voted for those 2 is the same reason why we just talked and talked here. They are going to talk for us. They might have a lackluster performance as a legislator but sure as hell knows how to talk ( listen to how Escudero talk, calm and with an uneducated ears like I have,he sure sounds like a man with common sense)

here in manolos blog. I read a lot of educated and smart persons yapping and yapping and yapping. The term keyboard warrior comes to my lowly mind. and I am also sick and wanted to puke to the so called intellectuals bashing the so called opposition, calling them names and telling everybody hey we got a strong economy! yippeeee! thank us we saved you from an actor. yeah and thanks to you, we are also benefiting to a lot of things that I am ashamed to mention.

Im just trolling and venting my anger. Pardon my rudimentary use of english language. For im just a high school graduate and I am super pissed about whats happening to the country WHERE I LIVE.

Just my 2 cents.

The evaluation of the Peso?

An effect that will happen regardless of GMA being president or some other scmuck like Victor Wood.
In fact, the peso’s evaluation cannot be stopped even if we wanted it to.

Point 1: our economy is being propped up by remittances. with every year seeing record highs.
Point 2: the US dollar is an embattled currency, thanks in large part to the genius known as Bush. With the drain on Iraq war, the US is already so far down that dark pit of budget deficiencies, it’s a wonder the whole world economy doesn’t tailspin into another great depression.
Point 3: Why be so proud of that gain? Most other currencies had been going better against the dollar than us, from strength to strength ever since Junior came into power. It’s like boasting after duck hunting. We got four feathers. The others got whole ducks.
Point 4: peso appreciation has a downside. exports earn less. a marker of a good economy is this: a country spends less on imports and earns more on exports. guess this isn’t us huh?

So, is our economy getting better? Let us count the ways:

More investments since that damn mining act went full blast. Jobs and money flow into the country. Still more investments because of the BPO industry. Wow. So many jobs, so many are happy we don’t even care if they’re exploiting us anymore! After all, beggars can’t be choosers, right?
Our credit rating has finally improved. What does that mean? Well it only means lesser interests rates for all that debt we have. Wow. Finally, a glimmer of hope that maybe we could finally chip off a small part of our natl debt’s principal…just after paying a few decades for a debt our country incurred mainly because of CORRUPTION!

Hmm. That list glows. Do inform me if I’ve missed others.
Now onto the consequences:

Mining. After a decade of that, the investors pack up, leaving each sites a wasteland and sucked dry of all minerals. All the lucky workers given jobs now have assorted respiratory diseases. The investors grin like hyenas having struck pay dirt. wow. buying our resources cheap and making off like thieves. Wow. Feels like a virgin who begged to be paid for sex, was paid 20 bucks, and then raped by 50, was left dead and spat on after being used. This one’s a sure winner I tell you.

BPO. Hmm. Nope. This is actually good. I totally agree with this one. Exploitation aside, so what if they’re paying us like peasants compared to what their earning? Dependence on us is actually a good thing. If only those damn Indians would get out of the picture, we could totally milk this cow and demand higher wages. This cow’s got a few more years to live anyway. After which the Koreans and the Chinese enter the picture. We’re all teaching them to be our future competitors, aren’t we? How smart of us!

Pandering to IMF and WB just to have our credit rating increased, nuff said. So what if most of those debts were due to illicit transactions by the same devils who’ve impoverished our nation? We’ll never get out of this hole unless the powers that be approve that total debt write-off for all developing countries that we’ve always been asking for. If they’ve already given it to the poorest African nations, we should be next in line huh? Or why would they bother? After all, our gov’t is already so gung-ho abt paying all this debt, we should thank GMA if they deny us that request huh?