Tobacco Republic

Former President Fidel V. Ramos before he left for Bangkok, Thailand on July 10, 2005. "That role of being a kingmaker, is a role that some shadowy characters like to play! I'm not like that," he says in response to criticisms that he has become a de-facto president, "a kingmaker" for supposedly saving the Arroyo administration from collapse.

Former Senate President Jovito Salonga said that "democracy does not guarantee good leaders. What it guarantees, in case you have bad leaders, is that you have the means to remove them from power."

It has been several days since the so-called "Hyatt-10", the 10 former cabinet members of President Arroyo have resigned, and it looks like Arroyo is hanging tough.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines declined to join increasing calls for the President's resignation. It came as a relief to the government; a similar call from the influential bishops' block could have boosted efforts to make her resign.

"Joseph, what's your stand?" asked my landlady this morning. "Resign, or impeachment?"

"Impeachment," I told her.

And this is why.

Several days ago, I was able to talk to Presidential Adviser on the Implementation of the Recommendation of the Feliciano Commission Carolina Hernandez. She said, that it is a bit of a shame if we compare our country with the experience of Indonesia with regard to elections.

"See, Joseph, Indonesia has just had its elections and you don't see people on the street protesting the results. They are a much younger democracy than ours," she lamented.

And there lies the challenge.

Our task is to prove to ourselves, that democracy is right for us, that we can make it work.

Impeachment is a viable option than outright resignation. At least, we can really find out, via that constitutional process if the President indeed committed fraud.

But I'm surmising it is not palatable to most politicians. Impeachment, so some critics say, is just a numbers game. Truth is irrelevant. If you have the numbers, never mind if you, in the case in point, committed fraud or not. Your partymates will just throw it out. But there's a good chance that even our politicians have matured. If they feel passionately as they do now in finding out the truth, let them shed their political color and represent their people the way that they should.

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Our boss has expressed worries that we might be quoted or things like that. So I'm referring you guys to the copyright thingie in the left bottom part of this blog. That says no attribution or whatever. Consider this, an exercise of my freedom of speech during a drinking binge.