Thursday, August 10, 2006

The Opposition tried to impeach Marcos too in 1985. Guess what happened.

Sabi ni Benigno:

“CODAL condemns the blatant disrespect and defiance shown by members of the Executive and Legislative branch to Supreme Court decisions and the erosion of the check and balance mechanisms under the Constitution in order to preempt serious investigation on crimes and other impeachable offenses”


Hmmmm. Sino kayang ungas ang nag-elek sa mga “defiant” and “blatant[ly] disrespect[ful]” government officials na iyan.

Sino kaya?

It's a fact that Arroyo, garcillano, and a bunch of COMELEC and Military officials helped rig the elections in favor of the president. The evidence was already there during the canvassing (I'm not even talking about the tapes yet), but they were just all "noted" away by Sen. Pangilinan and Raul Gonzalez.

And yes, I believe some pro-admin congressmen benefitted from the COMELEC dagdag bawas scheme that was exposed by Michaelangelo Zuce and from listening to the tapes, but I admit the majority of those congressmen who currently support arroyo were elected by their constituents. (although i do believe that many of her congressman supporters will immediately change sides (balimbing) if arroyo suddenly was booted out and replaced with a new president or if the lose all their pork money)

But we've seen this before during Marcos' time too.

let's go back to 1984. The 1984 batasan pambansa elections under marcos was considered generally peaceful and clean, and that's the assessment from Joe Con's NAMFREL, who we all know is no friend of marcos:

Jose S. Concepcion Jr.
Chairman, National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL)
28 May 1984


(Summary of speech by Jose Concepcion Jr. before the Makati Business Club, 28 May 1984)

QUALITY OF ELECTIONS

Elections were generally peaceful and clean -- that is, with isolated incidents of violence and cheating -- in 60% of the country while widespread and serious violation of election laws affected the remaining 40% of the country. This original estimate on the conduct of elections, based on general reports received in NAMFREL's Operations Quick Count center in Greenhills, was revealed by NAMFREL Chairman Jose Concepcion, Jr. in a speech delivered before a joint meeting of the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines last 28 May.

Mr. Concepcion, however, stated that the initial assessment was fine-tuned following more reports from NAMFREL provincial chairmen across the country. In 64.4% of the country, NAMFREL categorized the election as generally peaceful and honest. In these areas, disorderliness and fraud were said to be not sufficient to affect or cast doubts on electoral results. NAMFREL reported, however, that the high incidence of violence and cheating could have affected margins between candidates or could have caused elections to be considered a failure in at least 25.5% of the country.

which is almost similar to the 2004 elections in congress too, except for the massive dagdag bawas operation ni Garci and Arroyo sa Presidential elections. yes, may dayaan rin sa iilang Congressional House races na nakinabang mostly ang mga pro-admin candidates, but generally peaceful and clean ang mga elections sa House of Reps. at Senado.

No wonder noong 1986, at hindi after the 1984 elections, nagsimula ang people power.

Now, as we all know, in 1986, marcos was proclaimed newly elected president by his batasan pambansa that he controlled, just as gloria was proclaimed president by the Congress which she controls.

The Batasang Pambansa convened itself to make an official canvass of the election returns and to proclaim the winners. Based on the certificates of the canvass submitted to it by the Comelec registrars of 143 provinces, cities, and election districts, the Batasan on Feb. 15, 1986 proclaimed Ferdinand Marcos and Arturo Tolentino as the duly elected president and vice-president , respectively. The official Batasan tabulation showed that Marcos obtained 10,807,197 votes as against Aquino's 9,291,715 votes.

The Batasang Pambansa, which was controlled by the KNL, went on with the canvassing amidst the objections of the opposition members. The opposition MPs pointed out that there were irregularities in most of the certificates of canvass.

And if the Marcos opposition then tried to go by the book/constitution and impeach marcos for the 1986 election fraud scandal, they would have failed too, just like when they failed in 1985.

Opposition MPs file a motion for impeachment against Marcos in the Batasan, citing culpable violation of the Constitution and "hidden wealth." The majority party squelches the motion.

And this is interesting too:

August 1985, opposition Members of Parliament filed a motion to impeach Marcos, citing culpable violation of the Constitution and allegations of "hidden wealth." RAM firmed up coup plans for the day after Christmas. US Senator Richard Lugar, head of the Committee on Foreign Relations, sent a member of his staff, Frederick Brown, to Manila to evaluate the deteriorating situation. Brown concluded that one of the few promising developments was the emergence of the RAM, a group that the Pentagon and CIA happened to be quietly encouraging.

Akala ko ba, ayaw ng US sa mga coup coup na yan. Kasi hindi ba yan mismo ang ginawa ng RAM ni Gringo at Enrile nung 1986?

UPDATE: Here's what cory did after edsa to fix the problem of Batasan Pambansa dominated by marcos lackeys:

Aquino also abolished the Batasang Pambansa controlled by Marcos and assumed legislative powers. She issued executive orders. She authorized the removal of all KBL local elective officials – governors, vice-governors, mayors, vice-mayors, barangay captains – and replaced them with officers-in-charge (OICs).

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