Crimes of political vandalism, swindling

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
7/23-24/2011



The threshold limit that could effectively destroy what the people say as their “cherished democracy” is when the leader would openly violate the fundamental processes of how that democracy is supposed to work in a given society. That process, enshrined in the constitution, is either drafted directly by the people or through their representatives. It is through that process where our idealism is concretized in what French political thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau would call “social contract.”

Observance of that contract is imperative that anybody who would transgress that agreement is in effect seeking to destroy the very process upon which the social order in civil society is anchored. It is for this reason why states, no matter how liberally they may try to stretch the limits of freedom, would not think twice to sternly deal with political vandals by charging them either of treason, coup d’ etat, rebellion, subversion or sedition. These classes of crimes are of the highest level for they rob the soul of our democracy that as such would often exact from the perpetrators the supreme penalty of death or life imprisonment.

This is why crimes that tend to weaken or destroy the political and social order of society are met with sharp reaction. Such is the case for often the defensive state is compelled to exercise counter violence just to curtail the provocative violence unleashed by political vandals disguising themselves as messiahs, but whose principal objective is to plainly capture political power. They are far more dangerous than those criminals accused of murder, robbery, rape or graft because the consequence of the crime they commit create a deep wedge in our society, or could even plunge the state into a civil war that would cost the lives of innocent civilians.

We are compelled to explain the nature of this crime because it seems we continue to treat and pamper a person on the misguided notion that she once served as this country’s President. She continues to waddle around with arrogance unmindful that she stands as the country’s most notorious political vandal. The feat of political ignominy she committed in 2001, 2004 and 2007 has seemingly made her confident as some suspect she is behind the current rumblings to destabilize the Aquino administration in a bid to pre-empt any investigation against her for graft and corruption and prevent the possibility of her being pointed to as the mastermind behind the massive electoral fraud committed in 2004 and 2007. Some of her former henchmen are now pointing at her as the brains behind those acts of political swindling resulting in her having to remain in power beyond the term provided for in the Constitution.

On this score any attempt to vindicate the Constitution should begin on that blatant act of political vandalism she committed in 2001 where she ousted an overwhelmingly elected President. Maybe power grab is an extraordinary political process that could make the de facto status of her regime ripen to one of de jure as soon as she succeeds in imposing political stability. But some political scientists and legal luminaries doubt that kind of fictionalized political transition because Mrs. Arroyo did not declare a revolutionary government to officially scrap the constitution she vandalized. Rather, as usurper she used the very constitution to legitimize her illegal acts, which reason why she could be held wholly accountable and liable for her acts under the very Constitution she mangled and threw into the waste basket.

Worse, Mrs. Arroyo acted not only with calibrated malice, but sought in no uncertain terms to oust the duly elected President. Not satisfied, she orchestrated the filing of criminal charges against the ousted President despite the failure by her henchmen in the Senate to get the necessary vote to convict him. The conviction of the ousted President by the Kangaroo Court was therefore forthcoming, and that ugly episode now stands as legacy of that most despicable act of political vandalism. In fact, the justification made by the Supreme Court reduced the magistrates to nothing more but a bunch of political bootlicking clowns haggling to please Mrs. Arroyo, unmindful that their decision caused many constitutionalists to lose their mind.

Despite that blatant political transgression, Mrs. Arroyo again dared to cross the threshold; this time by committing massive electoral fraud to premeditatedly deprive presidential candidate Fernando Poe, Jr. of his sweet victory. The factual truth of that political swindling committed by her is now being concretized by an avalanche of evidence - although evidence before that were more than enough to haul her to court had it not been for the fact that she was still in power. The revelations made by former ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan and by that wanted Comelec election supervisor Lintang Bedol pointing to Mrs. Arroyo as the mastermind both in the 2004 and 2007 elections fraud only supplemented rather than reinforced the “Hello Garci” tapes and of her subsequent public confession of having committed that criminal act.

The prosecution of Mrs. Arroyo and her operatives should be President Aquino’s top priority. PNoy’s success in bagging the perpetrators who made a mockery of our democracy is the only way by which the Constitution could be vindicated. This task is Pnoy’s greatest challenge because democracy is not without its own political redemption. At the bottom are the people who were deprived of their right to vote on who should govern them. Failure to do it could boomerang on his leadership as utterly inept.

Worse, such ineptitude could even develop into a suspicion of collaboration for as successor, President Aquino could be mistaken as coddler and protector of the country’s most incorrigible political vandal. Paradoxically, while PNoy mulls on how he would decide on his own historical fate, the unrepentant operators are seemingly up at their bad habit of steering public disenchantment. This President Aquino much act decisively as the outcome sine qua non could prove all those charges against her for graft and corruption and plunder as rooted on the illegality of her coming to power.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)