Ducky Paredes

“(O)ne can be as bad, as crooked, as unclean an official as one wants to be. Yet, no one can do anything about it.”

by Ducky Paredes

It is clear to me that the impeachment process as it is written in our Constitution has become a plaything in the hands of our shameless politicians who derive such pleasure in finding ways to go around the rules that they themselves write. As far as the impeachment process is concerned, we now know that it will never work again. No one – absolutely no one (except perhaps, a total simpleton) – can ever, ever be impeached. They can try but our politicians have found the perfect defense against impeachment, which is impeachment itself.
The solution is simplicity itself. According to our constitution: “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.” So, all that one has to do to be immune from impeachement it to be inoculated with the impeachment vacine every 365 days or five times during a six year term. Then, one can be as bad, as crooked, as unclean an official as one wants to be. Yet, no one can do anything about it.
Of course, to be able to do this, one has to have enough congressmen who will vote to hear the latest impeachment charge and defeat it every 365 days. But that is quite easy to do when one is the President.
While this rule was set up to avoid making impeachent such a nuisance that the impeachment process could be initiated on a weekly or monthly basis, the fact is that Pinoys are just too smart not to be able to find a way to use such a rule against the impeachment process.
In other countries, an impeacment will be started only when one knows that he has substantial support for it in the House and in the Senate. In our case, many of the impeachment complaints that have been filed never really had a chance to move on to the Senate. They just never had the numbers.
Perhaps, a rule-change is in order. Let’s make it even more fun.
Have an impeachment resolution voted on yearly just as the budget is passed yearly. There need not be any complaint. After all, an impeachment trial is not a true trial in the sense that in a real trial, a crime must hae beren committed. Set a date every year (which could even be called “Impeachment Day”) on which the Lower House will vote on whether or not the President will be impeached. If the impeachment resolution passes, a committee will then be formed to decide on what the complaints will be. Once the complaints have been specified, this is transmitted to the Senate which would then have to decide on the matter in the fastest possible time.
This way, no time is wasted on pointless and unproductive speeches for or against impeachment, This is a simple resolution that can be treated as an annual rite that Congress has to go through.
Otherwise. Our politicians will simply go through their sham impeachment complaints year after year after year, wasting their and everyone else’s time.
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We have a letter from a UP Student: “I would just like to state my appreciation of your column entitled ‘Surprise, The Senate Works!’ I’m a no fan of the Senate or any of the senators, but your article has at least lightened up my distress regarding the things happening in our beloved country considering all the negative news I learn everyday from the newspapers, television, radio and elsewhere.
“Sometimes, the mass media already forget that they are expected to present both sides to the public. More often than not, since news nowadays tends to focus on the exceptional, its content is invariably an unrepresentative sample of events.
“For example, policy fiascos receive more attention than policy successes. Similarly, corruption is a story but integrity is not. In effect, Politics has already been stigmatized with dirty money, corruption, character assassinations, etc. Though, government has indeed failed to change this image, media magnified negative Politics even more, overshadowing our true public servants and sincere government officials.
“People are disillusioned as well, thus, increasing the number of lazy and hopeless citizens. And, for youth (dubbed as Pag-asa ng Bayan) like me, I find no incentive in aspiring to embark on the career of becoming a politician someday because of the pessimism the mass media imparted to me, in one way or another.
“By reading your column, it gave me a spark of hope and a relief to the extent that as I dropped my copy of your newspaper issue, I exclaimed ‘Haay, salamat! May ginagawa naman pala, eh.’ Moreover, Senator Villar is indeed right when he said that ‘what is essential could be invisible to the eye,’ and great for you, for at least from among the many columnists not only in your newspaper company but also from others as well, you were able to spot what I believe is essential to many disillusioned Filipinos right now by citing the nine bills the Senate was able to pass recently.” — Gloria Krisana L. Gallezo, BA Political Science, UP Diliman
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Still, for the millions that we spend on each of our senators annually, nine bills do not really seem like much for four months’ work, does it?
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The Fifth Leg of the 2007 San Mig Coffee Sugar Free Senior Golf Series for the Federation of Philippine Amateur Senior Golfers, Inc. (FPASGI) will be at the Mimosa Golf and Country Club in Clark Field with Tee-Off from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. on Friday, October 26, 2007. Hosts are the Mimosa Senior Golfers Association, Inc. (MSGA) headed by Pat Herron, President.
As with all of the legs of the San Mig Senior Golf Series, there will be raffle prizes for all participants as well as give-away packages of various San Miguel products as well as trophies for age group Champions and runners-up and for the winner of the team competition between competing member-clubs of the FPASGI.
Scoring is by the Stableford system.
All FPASGI members are invited to join this tournament, which is the second to the last tournament. The last tournament in the series will be held in December.
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Readers who missed a column can access www.duckyparedes.com/blogs. This is updated daily. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@yahoo.com

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hvp (10.12.07)