Ora et mura?
it would deny the House valuable radio-TV time. In the case of Erap, Speaker Manny Villar pretended, maybe with the best of intentions, to pray but was disingenuously transmitting the Articles of Impeachment na
pala, without any recorded voting on something important, nay, historic. I lamented that I would never know how my Pasig Cong would have voted; Henry Lanot was thereafter assassinated. Lawyer Lorenzo Gadon, a failed KBL senatorial bet in 2016, we see, is now a household word beyond his own household.
Learning a lesson perhaps, the other extreme we now see; the current House won’t let go. What radio-TV can do to energize lawmakers. There was even sad talk of arresting CJ Meilou before saner elements intervened to abort throwing her under the bus. If impeachment is truly a political exercise, she would have been a political detainee, like Sen. Leila de Lima, on whose case Digong continues to comment, raising the specter of a possible mistrial.
Civilian supremacy carried the day
Release all political detainees was our pre-EDSA ‘86 battlecry or shibboleth. The military was heard, through Defense Minister JPE and AFP Chief of Staff FVR. Uncle Jovy Salonga chaired the Committee on the Immediate Release of Detainees and we met at Club Filipino and Camp Aguinaldo in late February 1986. We insisted on immediate release. Manong JPE said with some emotion that he could not explain it to his boys. Civilian supremacy carried the day though even if blood would be spilled over and over, for principle, that institutional arrangements be preserved. But, the economy kept growing, tourists and investors kept coming to the point that my wife, then a Mondragon executive, was for business. Then the devastating 1989 coup. Flat from then on. Our economy could have kept growing at the time, on which FVR could have built, on top of having the anti-subversion law repealed. All Prezs, like most everyone, commit errors of the minds but get a free pass as long as they are not errors of the heart. And good faith is always presumed, in this land of party animals. Happy Birthday, Freddie Webb (Manila Golf, last Saturday) and Conrad Limcaco (Filinvest Country Club, last Sunday). Kamandag Freddie, with his animal appeal, was with us in a son of Conrad, shocked me with his presence when Sen. Lorenzo Tañada and I, clandestinely, met high-value fugitive Boy Morales, who had gone underground. Happy Bday, Ninoy, on November 27, who told us that the Filipino may be likened to the carabao, very slow to anger, but once provoked, watchout. The other day, it prevented me from getting to Araneta for Game 2 of the Ateneo-La Salle title duel. But, denied I won’t be. This Sunday, the whole enchilada. I plan to watch Game 3 even if ducats would cost a little fortune. But, my Jr., Rebo, we call him, is UAAP commish and executive director. I expect to be let in free. Paternity has its privileges. Eat your hearts out.