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MABUHAY PRRD!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Of sycophants and flatterers

Nestor Mata

‘They have been misguiding President Aquino, especially in the ongoing Corona impeachment trial.’

THE big, big trouble with President Noynoy Aquino, ever since he came to power, is that he’s surrounded by sycophants, servile and self-seeking flatterers who have been misguiding him, especially, on his intervention in the ongoing impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Not only this, Aquino has been misled politically and legally by them into believing that, with all his presidential powers and government resources, he can do anything to satisfy his vindictive appetite even in contravention of the Constitution and its ordained mandates for due process, rule of law, and the separation of powers of the co-equal three branches of the government under a democracy.

That’s why Aquino went on to conspire with his allies in the House of Representatives in the filing an impeachment complaint against Corona. That complaint, as you all well remember, was signed by 188 congressmen, without bothering to read it, and dispatched posthaste to the Senate for trial. It was part of his insidious plot to wreak vengeance, even by foul means, on his predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her official appointees, including the chief justice.

Now, on the 27th day of Corona’s trial before the Senate impeachment court, the case is turning out to be an awful disaster for his band of congressmen-prosecutors, who from the start have been fumbling, bumbling and blindly groping for proofs and witnesses to prove their hastily-prepared and flawed Articles of Impeachment against the demonized magistrate of the land.

Aquino’s panel of congressmen-prosecutors, as well as some 50 private lawyers employed to assist them, with their disputatious, specious and logically invalid arguments, have failed to prove their case against Corona beyond reasonable doubt in the contemplation of the presiding judge, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, and senator-judges, except perhaps Aquino’s allies among them.

Oh yes, apart from his relentless tirades against Corona outside the halls of the Senate, Aquino, mindless of being accused of unlawful interference in the Senate proceedings, claimed that his prosecution panel had succeeded in proving Corona’s guilt, even though the impeachment court still has to hear the side of the defense panel.

Aquino also made the startling comment that from some "political dimension" in the testimony of his secretary of justice as a witness was not "hearsay," as ruled by the court, which must have made the senator-judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, law professors and their students wonder from what planet he got such legal lore.

Alas, after his decades-long stint as congressman and senator, Aquino seems not to have learned at all the basic legal processes in our democratic system of government and that he has forgotten his oath as president to obey, protect and preserve the Constitution!

And now, apparently sensing that his blundering prosecutors, with their eristic reasoning, may have utterly failed to prove their charges against Corona, Aquino and his political henchmen are planning "to bring their case to the people" even though the Senate impeachment court still has to hear the defense side before it can render its final judgment to convict or acquit Corona.

They plan to present their "evidence" (some of which turned out to have been illegally obtained) to the public even though these have not been evaluated and accepted by the Senate court as admissible evidence. It’s a "house- to- house," " district- to- district, "province-to- province" information campaign.

However, it’s not an information drive at all, but a disinformation drive. And it’s designed to get public support and pressure the senator-judges to convict the chief magistrate.

But, they commented, it’s going to be an exercise in futility. A recent nationwide public opinion survey has shown that a big majority of the general public will abide by whatever decision, be it conviction or acquittal, the Senate impeachment court may make.

What appears clear, they also noted, is that Noynoy’s senator-judges do not have the numbers to convict Corona. But his other political allies, who always bow and say "amen" to the diktats of their master in the Palace, will do anything and everything, even to the extent of defying constitutionally ordained principles of due process and the rule of law, to get Corona ousted.

Let’s see what else the President’s sycophantic officials, servile political allies and self-seeking flatterers will whisper in his ears in the coming days that, who knows, might just lead to his political fallout, make him a lame duck even before his term ends in 2016, or impeachment?

***

Quote of the Day: "Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one side or the other." – James Harvey Robinson

Thought of the Day: "We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up. That’s the answer to any problem. Just look up!" – ANON

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