Interesting to see Gloria Arroyo attempting to use, abuse, and make a refuse of, the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.

When a bishop acted as impeachment complainant, the Arroyo partisans cried wolf: the buffoon Prospero Nograles calling it a violation of the Constitution; the Fortress by the Pasig calling for a probe whether the bishop violated any Church rule. Both were incorrect. Using an papal encyclical, MLQ3 debunks the Fortress’ call. DJB twits the hapless (and hopeless) Nograles by citing the Constitution and what is probably the correct interpretation of that section of the Charter.

And right after meeting Pope Benedict XVI, Arroyo minced no words in using the Pope. Her message basically said the Pope sang praises of her acts, and supports the Chacha ChooChoo train. Again, read the pertinent quote in the excellent DJB post. MLQ3, not amused by the booboos of the Fortress protocol (addressing the King of Spain in a press release as “Highness”, the appellation reserved for a prince; Arroyo making “mano” instead of just shaking hands, as protocol between two heads of state, and besides if she really want to pay obeisance, she has to kiss the Pope’s ring), titled his blog post as Sandbagging the Pope.

Maybe, the Catholic Church’s refusal to dance to the Fortress’ music will force Arroyo to do something which was done centuries ago. Think Henry VIII. Maybe Arroyo is thinking of transforming herself as an Elizabeth I (Queen Bess was also called *shudders* Gloriana), head of state for life, promulgating a new Royal Charter, and establishing a state religion.

The current buzz nowadays is the second impeachment against Gloria Arroyo, and she is being bombarded by one complaint a day. Just to cover all bases, they say, since this House of Reprehensibles, er Representatives will surely resort to a technicality again. Knowing how creative Nograles and Lagman are, heck, they can even use the one-a-day complaints as a technicality to dismiss most – if not all – of the complaints outright.

And then Nograles began shooting is mouth off, ridiculing the impeachment complaints as wastes of time. Tell Nograles that if and when the complaint goes to the Committee on Justice, he should inhibit himself, since he has already made a judgment on the complaint. But being a congressman, that’s wishing for the moon.

I think this year’s impeachment will not prosper, again. We have the same cast of characters, and their intentions and loyalties are clear. So expect a repeat of last year. Unless there will be a concentrated effort to convince the lethargic citizenry to convince their rapacious congressmen to at least hear it out, the impeachment is dead even before it is born.

If that happens, those for Arroyo’s impeachment should campaign for an impeachment Congress. Make sure that those who will participate in the murder of the spirit of law (the rule of law is long dead, way back 2001) pay for their stubbornness. That’s the only way to do it.

So I end my speculation about impeachment. The next weeks will be again buzzing with political punditry. The apathetic ones will once again roll their eyes, and call anti-Arroyo as destabilizers. Straight from the Arroyo playbook.

Reading the comments and general reactions for One Voice, in the news and in Web logs, I thought that point number five will be the toughest goal to reach. The biggest hurdle to reach that goal is the cynicism of the common Pinoy. Have you heard/read the following comments:

• Different name, same banana
• ‘civil society’ crowd rehash
• Nothing new here. The same people with the same old talk.
• same people, different packaging, another form of regrouping

Goal number five, “A collective effort to rebuild the trustworthiness of our democratic institutions”, calls for every individual to trust the system again. The key word is collective. But look again at the responses, and you can see that seeking a collective effort is an uphill climb. The people won’t even trust groups who espouse ideas, old and new. They are so cynical that they are willing to just shirk off their responsibilities and adopt an “I-don’t-care” attitude.

This cynicism plays to Gloria Arroyo’s advantage. The cynical Pinoy has unwittingly played Arroyo’s game. Their refusal to exercise their civic responsibilities fuels the impasse that we are in now. And they don’t even know they are being used.

One Voice must push on. It should begin listening to grassroots, start a dialogue with the common folk, inform them of what they can do. And I think One Voice should target the middle class as well; it had its chance, lost it, and now shirks from its responsibility. It has brought us EDSA II, and wounds, and they won’t even acknowledge their sins. The middle class is not the only majority. It’s time that the true majority of the people take the initiative and heal those wounds. One Voice should serve as catalyst, the nurse to the doctor. It is time for cynicism to end; it is time for trusting each other to begin. Otherwise, this archipelago will remain fragmented.

Hopefully this group will fare better than those who came and went before. Read about One Voice in their Web site. (How I wish their documents are in HTML format so that I don’t have to download the PDF files.) MLQ3 is one of the organizers.

Out of her magic hat and in a span of one week, Gloria Arroyo had made billion-peso allocations: one billion pesos to drive the NPA to the ground, and another billion peso to battle corruption.

The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that Arroyo really wanted a reenacted budget. This gives her too much leeway in juggling of funds; she began by allocating two billion pesos. This is probably from her pork barrel. And since another impeachment is in the offing, she needs to make sure that the complaint will be quashed in the House; that will entail money.

Yet, she has not allocated anything to help the victims of Mt. Bulusan. Sure, there is a calamity fund to draw money from; her actions only show where her priorities lie. The hawks in the Fortress by the Pasig don’t care about victims of the explosion; they are more interested in defeating the NPA, which the government has failed to do so for twenty years. Will she draw money from her magic hat, too, for the victims of Mt. Bulusan?

On another note, I hope civic groups will begin soliciting help for victims of Mt. Bulusan.

Another excuse for politicians to issue platitudes and usual rhetoric about the independence of this country. As The Bystander had asked: are we really free? Are we really independent?

Maybe we are in terms of colonization. But the problem is that we are not free INTERNALLY. Poverty has taken hold of the majority of our people, pushing them into slavery. The lives of the Filipinos are dictated upon by a minority of elite. We are shackled – perhaps eternally – by a ballooning foreign debt. We have a government that would rather suppress human rights in order to preserve its life. We are mired in a vicious cycle of despair.

We need freedom. We need to be free from all of those things that shackle us to the ground. We need to fight to gain our independence – again.

The question is: are you willing to fight for your freedom? Or you’ll just be content with the sacrifices of our heroes?

Have a reflective Independence Day Monday.