No-El debate. Besides the “bribe” to 236 congressmen and 12 expiring senators who will automatically become members of parliament (MP) for three years, another objectionable feature of the Constitutional Commission draft constitution is the appointment of 30 additional members of parliament by GMA.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, like Indonesia, most of the 30 will be from the military establishment.
The other necessary result of the parliamentary system is the appointment of most Cabinet members from the ranks of MPs.
To be generous, we shall not name names of potential Cabinet members from the current Congress but certainly, it wouldn’t be an improvement over current and past Cabinets. It will be a highly politicized and populist Cabinet. And the Cabinet members will not only have P50-70 million in “pork barrel” but the entire budget of the department they head.
Tee hee...
Manong E. also has some interesting tidbit on DILG Sec. Angie Reyes
Power seeker. Interior and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes has in effect said at his MOPC appearance that he has refused the offer of GMA to appoint him as ambassador to Washington and that he would rather stay in his post preparatory to run for senator in 2007. Aides say Angie was very angry when the offer was made.
This is an indication that Angie is interested in higher office and in possessing more power. Why run for senator, Angie? Isn’t it easier to grab power as you have shown in January 2001?
OUCH!
Eto pa:
Gridlock. The oft-repeated reason for the shift to a unicameral legislation is the gridlock caused by the presence of the Senate. This is not true because the non-passage of pressing legislation is also due to House inaction.
Take the budget, the anti-terrorism and the minimum wage bills. They are still pending in the House and have not reached the Senate. A unicameral legislature does not assure faster and better legislation.
Without a Senate, there is no check on the abuses of funding as well as faulty legislation in the House of Representatives.
Without a Senate, there is no counter balance and check on corruption in the executive branch.
Matakaw talaga sa kapangyarihan si Mrs. Arroyo.
-- Whether you're for or against FVR, you have to admit na he looks kinda pathetic lately, don't you think?
-- From Horacio Paredes: Impeachment will fail again
Forget about impeachment. The process has been destroyed, rendered totally inutile – from being misused, then from being abused and finally by being willfully misinterpreted and misrepresented by those very congressmen who are supposed to use the process to rid ourselves of those who are unfit to rule over us.
Now, as we count the days to when, a year after an impeachment complaint failed, another impeachment may again be filed against the most incompetent and most morally unfit president ever, it is almost certain that any impeachment complaint will again fall short.
Any attempt at impeaching Gloria will fail, not because she has the numbers or that she has done no wrong. Impeachment will fail because the rules have been so rewritten as to make sure that any impeachment will fail.
When the Chief Justice, in defending himself against an impeachment complaint, enticed the whole of the Supreme Court to issue resolutions that, in effect, disqualified any and all complaints against any SC justice, this weakened the impeachment process. In effect, the Court has re-written the rules on impeachment. While justices may only be removed by impeachment, the Court has resolved that no impeachment complaint against any of them can ever succeed.
The House of Representatives, in tackling the impeachment complaint against Gloria Arroyo last year, has also likewise ruled that the same rule (with added complications) also applies to their beloved Gloria. Now, once again, the same lawyer who filed the impeachment complaint that set off the impeachment sweepstakes last year is gearing himself to be the first to file – again. Surely, his complaint will again lead nowhere.
The rules of the impeachment game have been re-written. Round one goes to the first one to file an impeachment complaint because, as willfully misinterpreted by the House of Representatives, when an impeachment complaint has been accepted, it disqualifies subsequent impeachment complaints that may be filed. Only the first one counts. Thus, if the first one is weak that’s the end of it. According to Oliver Lozano, he will file his impeachment complaint to "preempt a coup or a possible violent takeover being hatched by disgruntled elements in the society. I’m giving them a message that there’s a better way to resolve the crisis and this is the better way."
Lozano is wrong. With the help of Gloria’s congressmen, he has contributed to killing impeachment as a way that could lead us to good or better government by ridding ourselves of Constitutional officers who turn out to be the type of leaders that the Constitution should be guarding against. As things presently stand, impeachment is a useless and impractical tool.
So, forget about impeachment. Under the present set-up, no impeachment will succeed. Impeachment works only under a regime where we are all equals and those who hold public office can be held accountable for their crimes. In a set-up where the rules are written to protect those who hold high office, forget about legal processes. The only way to remove Gloria Arroyo will be through the use of force. There is just no other way.
I'm sure the poeple would love to see Lozano and Arroyo's allies make a mockery of the impeachment process for the second year in a row.
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