In any rigged game, millions of money is always involved. But unlike in any rigged game, in this game, the riggers are not ashamed to admit that they have earned money from such rigging. That’s how low our congressmen have gone. That’s how low WE have gone. Our dignity has a price.

One congressman from Cebu admits getting Php 200,000 in cash in a meeting between 190 congressmen and the Fortress Thursday morning; in the evening, the ball called impeachment complaint was passed from one hand to the other, faster than you can say “Foul!”. The congressman called it an “advance Christmas gift”. I now wonder where did the Fortress get the money.

Unfortunately for these now-200K-rich congressmen, they cannot blame and prevent us poor people from thinking that they were paid to act on the impeachment complaint. The dots are so easy to connect; they could have made it harder for us to make conclusions. But no, they were so overtaken by the cash and pork barrel promises.

A Filipino word comes to mind. It starts with the letter G, and ends with the letter L, total of seven letters. For those who don’t get it yet: G*r*p*l.

And there’s no one to be blamed but us. We keep on voting for them, even if they continuously screw us up. We let them rape us. We let them rape our kid’s future. We are willing victims. We are the fools.

Are you still willing to be raped?

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When Sir MLQ3 quoted the first in this series of blog posts about this year’s impeachment game, some people left comments at HIS blog, which I find funny. Anyway, two comments need to be addressed.

The first one, in essence, said that at least, the game allowed us to glean the chaff from the grain. While this assertion remains debatable (ehem, Cayetano and Escudero), that is not the point. The fact that the process has been turned into a money-making game is troubling. The Constitution is raped and mutilated in the process.

Also, the gleaning process defeats the purpose of impeachment – to remove an erring official from office. At the rate the gleaning process is going, the official that should be impeached would have been gone from office, and evidence of wrongdoing already cleaned up.

The second one argues that the impeachment is a political process, and such, is always a numbers game. The argument has its merit, but I always argue that it is the case because we allow it to be. I think I have already argued that the current process is flawed and needs changing. The current process ultimately defeats the purpose of the process.

The impeachment process follows certain rules, and it is based on the Constitution, giving it some semblance of legality. That the framers of the document believed that the congressmen will weigh in on the evidence presented before making a vote shows that the impeachment is also a legal process. At that point, the belief is pure naivete at hindsight.

Before the 2007 elections, I had argued that the true battle that will win the war was the House, but some people followed Sun Tzu and chose their own battle – the Senate. The Black and White Movement took the harder battle by issuing the Black List and the White List. While the Senate is a battle won (and some will argue that it is not a complete victory), guess who gets the last laugh? We shirked on hard work, and we lost.

The question now is this – will we ever learn?