In my over six decades as a journalist, I have never seen so many impeachment complaints being filed in so short a time!
This early into the present administration, there have been complaints against President Rodrigo Duterte, Vice President Leni Robredo, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista.
Sereno, for instance, is accused of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution, both broad accusations.
What would prosper against Sereno, I think, is her failure to declare in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth the fees she collected when she was arbitration lawyer in Singapore for the Philippines.
If the late Chief Justice Renato Corona was convicted for the same offense, can Sereno be far behind?
And then there is the case against Comelec Chairman Bautista. This looks like a sure thing.
If Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is to be believed, soon Sereno will be tried with no less than 100 House members ready to sign the complaint against her and endorse it to the Senate.
But can the Senate handle the trial of Sereno and Bautista at the same time?
This will mean that our senators will no longer be able to do anything related to their lawmaking function.
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What concerns me more than anything in the President’s war on illegal drugs is the middle class has not expressed enough outrage. Despite the killings, there have been no real protests.
Have the people been so desensitized? Are they afraid to come out in the open?
It’s a shame we don’t have a genuine opposition leader we can all believe in. To me, this is the real tragedy of our nation. Only when there is a viable opposition can democracy survive.
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The brouhaha over the return of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses reminds me of Operation Big Bird conceived during the Cory Aquino regime.
I was privy to this because I was vice president and consultant of Mike de Guzman’s Credit Manila.
In effect it was a sting operation because it sought to obtain the consent of the late President Marcos and the former first lady Imelda Marcos who were in Honolulu at that time.
The operation was clearly a betrayal of the Marcoses who gave De Guzman and Joe Almonte letters of authority so they could contact Marcos’ Swiss lawyers for the initial release of $116 million. The Swiss bank agreed to release the first tranche of the money.
To ensure that the money would reach the Philippine government, the deal was to the money to be deposited first at De Guzman’s bank.
On the day the bank was supposed to release the money to Sedfrey Ordoñez, he was called back to the Philippines by Presidential Commission on Good Government chairman Jovito Salonga. The reason: Salonga did not trust De Guzman and Almonte and feared they would run off with the money.
But how could they have done it since there were many safeguards in place?
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The claim of new Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña that 70 percent of drugs circulating nationwide does not only come through the Port of Manila but through other ports just validates what I have been saying that the drug problem will not end as long as there is supply.