Getting away with it

EDITORIAL

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06/15/2010

Will Gloria Arroyo, her spouse and a multitude of her Cabinet secretaries be facing charges once President-elect Noynoy Aquino is sworn into high office?

Maybe. But then again, maybe not — especially if some kind of deal has been cooked up between good ole USA and the new dispensation, which really isn’t far-fetched at all.

Naturally, there will be a commission formed, as this was the promise of Aquino, but there is serious doubt that the inquiry would get very far, first because very few, if at all, incriminating documents would be found as evidence. Gloria and her boys are hardly the types that would leave incriminating documents behind. Second, not one of the Gloria boys will be willing to talk and implicate themselves in the crime.

Chances are very high that whatever incriminating evidence there is, by way of documents, already has been fed to the shredder.

In fact, long before the elections were scheduled, some of the NBN-ZTE documents were claimed by an official to be have been “lost.”

Truth is, what Noynoy’s mother could do by way of charging Marcos and his family members in 1986, Noynoy can’t do, in the case of Gloria Arroyo.

In 1986, there was the Edsa revolt and Ferdinand Marcos and his family quickly vacated Malacañang, leaving a lot of stuff, including Imelda’s jewelry, some pieces of which, incidentally were said to have been carted off by the Cory yellows (so early in the game and in position of power, and already stealing, too!).

And as Cory Aquino had declared herself as a revolutionary government, where she moreover was the absolute law and government, (she had abolished Congress and demanded the resignations of all the Supreme Court justices), she could come up with her executive fiat creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government — which turned out to be nothing good about good government, and even charged the Marcoses without any due process — as the executive fiat already judged Marcos as guilty for having stolen some P10 billion claimed by the Cory government.

Noynoy can hardly replicate this power, since he has to follow what the Constitution says, unless of course he declares a revolutionary government, which would certainly not be acceptable to the Filipino people. That would be the end of him.

Aquino can create a commission, which is allowed by law, although he won’t have that power to grant the commission he establishes the power to summon anyone under pain of contempt, as this power has to be first granted by Congress.

Still, despite having a commission with such powers, this body being a creation of the executive branch, all that it can do is to recommend and this is where the problem lies — if such is really seen as a problem — and the body that is to charge Gloria, et al. belongs to the realm of the Ombudsman.

Charges against Gloria have already been dismissed by the Ombudsman, although this dismissal does not preclude the refiling of these charges. But there is still the Ombudsman who will likely dismiss these charges again.

Aquino has said he is mulling an impeachment move against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, but on what grounds? For not charging Gloria, et al.? That certainly is not a ground to impeach the Ombudsman. That power to investigate and the choice of prosecution or dismissal of the case, which is legal and constitutional, depends solely on the Ombudsman.

Still, if the idea of Aquino is really not all-out prosecution of Gloria and her family members, but to embarrass and humiliate them, which Aquino and his yellows have proven to have this penchant, as shown in the way they tried to embarrass and humiliate the chief justice, for having accepted an appointment from Gloria, as well as treating shabbily the outgoing military chief of staff, Gen. Delfin Bangit, to show the people that he has delivered on his early promise, then the commission he creates, with his vindictive yellows at the helm, for sure, can be counted on to embarrass and humiliate and can be called a done deal — with the US government perhaps.

All signs point to Gloria Arroyo being safe from facing charges.

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