“Cayetano voices out the frustration of an outraged public, with discoveries of corruption most gross under a political system where impunity reigns among the high and mighty”
SEN. Alan Peter Cayetano came up with an interesting idea. Preposterous though because it depends on nationally elected officials from congressmen to senators to the vice-president and president to resign, and for Congress before resignation passing an enabling law to provide for it.
But hardly any of these predators will resign. Maybe Alan terms that “repentance.”
Still, Cayetano voices out the frustration of an outraged public, with discoveries of corruption most gross under a political system where impunity reigns among the high and mighty. If only for that, his idea provokes discussion.
Everybody and his mother decry political dynasties which the 1987 Constitution proscribes although leaving it to Congress to pass the law that would castrate their individual and collective greed. For the last 38 years Congress has not responded.
Politics has become big business, depending on rank and power among peers, or in the case of LGUs, the size of its revenues. From the time we held periodic elections since 1987, the dynasties grew and grew, with power transferred from family members.
Reckoned from that time, we are now into the third generation of dynasts. Reckoned from pre-martial law politics, there are sixth-generation dynasties still bleeding the public till.
Can we thus abolish Congress, whose members are now the main culprits in the flood control scandals and more?
Morir antes de dimitir.
To many among us who now cry to the highest heavens for retribution from their corruption and our own voters’ fecklessness, abolishing Congress is not an unwelcome idea.
But who will execute the deed?
The AFP chief confessed that retired officers approached him and even his juniors to withdraw support from the present government, and with this there arise two options: as in GMA versus Erap in Jan. 2001, install the vice-president as Constitutional successor; or, for a civilian-military junta to rule in transition, re-write the fundamental law and then call for elections under a reset political system.
But in 1989, at the height of the almost-successful coup against Pres. Cory Aquino, the officers involved offered the transition leadership to then Supreme Court Chief Justice Marcelo Fernan, but he refused.
Who knows what would have happened if Fernan accepted?
Would President Bush or his veep Dan Quayle have ordered the Phantom jets to do those persuasion flights still, forcing the rebel soldiers to stand down, if the chief justice had accepted the role of transition leader?
The American president thought that a new bases treaty could pass muster thereafter, but the president they saved was unable to convince the Senate to allow Clark, Subic and John Hay to remain under US control.
Some say the first option is not palatable to our US-influenced generals, because VP Sara is perceived to be like her father who now languishes in a foreign prison, fiercely independent and veering towards a China rapprochement instead of obeisance to the US of A.
But another option, which is to confer power to a transition civilian-military revolutionary junta risks international non-recognition, which could then trigger public disapproval.
By public of course, we do not refer to the teeming masses who are often treated as cannon fodder by the organized groups of the left and self-styled civil society groups. They were rendered voiceless in previous “peaceful revolts,” used by elite interests.
The demand for accountability to serve as lesson for future impunity faces the stumbling block of how high the current political powers will allow heads to roll.
And therein lies the conundrum. How high is high for the ICI, which at the moment wants to pursue its investigation behind closed doors, away from the “circus” of public scrutiny?
Will its findings satisfy the public and tame the outrage, particularly that of the youth?
Then again, its recommendation goes to the newly appointed Ombudsman, who can take the next two years to file cases against the “big fry” before the Sandiganbayan, which in turn will hold lengthy trials, believing that the public will forget, and forgive.
As in the sordid saga of Napoles, will Alcantara, Hernandez et al., languish in jail, while the “proponents” who masterminded the deals and took the lion’s share of the spoils enjoy the life of the rich and famous in Portugal or elsewhere in the planet?
Through several chapters in our history, such forgetfulness over the criminal abuses of the powerful always happen.
Will the present demographic, where the Gen Z’s and the millennials dominate the baby boomers and Gen X, also forgive and forget?
Hopefully not, or their future is doomed.
