THREAT AND COERCION BY TEXT MESSAGING
(Privilege Speech of Minority Leader EDCEL C. LAGMAN on 21 March 2011)
The impeachment proceedings against the respondent Ombudsman have increasingly degenerated into an inordinately partisan enterprise.
While it is conceded that impeachment is generally political in character, nonetheless it is impressed with a quasi-judicial nature, for which reason the immutable tenets of due process should be accorded to both the complainants and the respondent.
The partisan alacrity to doom the Ombudsman was started by the President himself when he unabashedly and publicly rallied the members of his party to impeach the Ombudsman – targeting the Ombudsman as public enemy number one, who is not even charged with graft and corruption, but with contrived sins of omission.
The President imprinted his own logo on the impeachment proceedings unmindful that under the Constitution he has no role or participation whatsoever in impeachments.
While the House of Representatives acts as prosecutor and the Senate sits as the impeachment court, and the Supreme Court can, in proper cases, exercise judicial review, the President is shut out of the proceedings, except when he is the respondent himself.
Under Section 19 of Article VII, the President is even prohibited from granting pardons in impeachment cases.
After the President opened the floodgates for the impeachment of the Ombudsman, the partisan inundation intensified.
It reached a chilling level with the circulation last weekend of the following text message:
“Frm Cong. Abaya – Favor kindly disseminate to all reps – LP and non-LPs. This shud b made clear to all. Those who will vote no or absent/abstain on impeachment will get 0 as in zero. At least walang sisihan that there was no forewarning. Thank you.”
The unmistakable import of this text message is crystal clear:
1. The message purportedly came from “Cong. Abaya” in reference to our distinguished colleague, Rep. Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya, the Chairman of the powerful Committee on Appropriations.
2. There will be no funding releases to any Member of the House who votes against the impeachment or abstains or is absent.
3. The non-release is “0 as in zero.”
4. It is not even a “fair warning” but a “forewarning” as in “beware, you know the adverse consequences.”
Aside from being the apex of partisanship which is unparalleled in the annals of Congress, this “forewarning” demeans Members of this House as salivating mercenaries who would trade their judicious discretion and conscientious conviction for SAROs and NCAs.
The “forewarning” desecrates democracy in a deliberative assembly and reduces our debates into haggling bouts in the marketplace.
The “forewarning” insults the integrity of the Members of this August Chamber and goads them to dance like unthinking puppets to the orchestrating baton of the President.
This is also blatant bribery! This is a crime!
Honorable Colleagues, I am certain we are not taking lying down this subversion of our independence and integrity.
Let us rise as one to denounce this transgression and protect the supremacy and freedom of our hallowed Institution whose Members are the duly-elected Representatives of the sovereign people.
Let us vote on the Articles of Impeachment with an open and fair mind. Let us be extremely judicious. Let us resist outside dictations, and follow only the well-meaning dictates of our respective consciences.
Of course, expectedly, the Honorable Abaya has disavowed authorship of the threatening text message. I believe him. He cannot do this to his colleagues on his own. His name and position were used with aggravating premeditation. The Office of the President has not even categorically disclaimed privity to such damning message.
The ominous text was sent purposely to deliver a coercive message. It has boomeranged.
Fund releases are not for the personal benefit of Members of the House. They are for the benefit of their constituencies. Our constituents should not be deprived or punished for the votes we cast.
Due to the negative publicity the text has generated, Malacañang belatedly announced that the PDAF will be released, irrespective of one’s vote, which should be the case. But the damage has been done and the fear it was designed to create has taken its toll.
I ask the leadership of the House of Representatives to assure a full-blown debate on the Report of the Committee on Justice and the proposed Articles of Impeachment, not only to afford fair and thorough deliberation but to dispel any suspicion that we have been cowed to subservience by any threat or promise of gold.
I also ask the leadership to immediately cause the investigation of this latest assault against our Institution. More than the impeachment proceedings, the preservation and protection of the independence and integrity of our Chamber must be upheld and prioritized.
The investigation must be undertaken by a Committee of the Whole because the entire Membership was maligned and threatened.
Pending the results of the investigation, the consideration of the Report of the Committee on Justice must be suspended.
Anyway, the Plenary has sixty (60) session days from the submission last Tuesday, March 15, 2011, of the Committee Report and the accompanying Articles of Impeachment to consider, deliberate and dispose of the same (paragraph 2 of Section 8, Rule III of the House Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Proceedings). And according to the Senate, it can only take up the impeachment case, if ever referred to it, only by May when the sessions resume after the Lenten break.
Our integrity and independence have been impeached even before we could even act on the impeachment of the Ombudsman. Silence and inaction, even more so subservience, are shameful epitaphs for this Congress of the People.