Shoe attack

The shoe-throwing incident that nearly hit US President George W. Bush while holding a joint news conference in Baghdad with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki of Iraq clearly proved there is no best laid security plan that could stop a determined assassin or terrorist to carry out his or her mission. For one thing, who would think of such a scenario of a sneak attack where shoes are thrown as instruments of harm in the middle of a sit-down press conference?

Muntathar al Zaidi, a 29-year-old employee of the Baghdadiya Television, tried to assault with his pair of shoes the outgoing American President for the continued occupation by US forces in Iraq. No Secret Service agent was in view on the video when Zaidi threw the first shoe at Bush’s head from about 20 feet away.

But a sharp-eyed Bush dodged the shoe attack. Maliki, who was standing to Bush’s left, tried to block Zaidi’s second attempt, which also missed its target. The video shows that another Iraqi journalist, not security agents, pulled Zaidi to the floor before Iraqi police and Secret Service agents could gang up on him.

In my experience with the US Secret Service during coverage of the state visits of Philippine Presidents at the White House in Washington, I had the impression they are the most thorough and strictest security personnel. But that incident in Baghdad has seriously damaged anew the reputation of the Secret Service with their US history replete with cases of assassinated American Presidents.

At the Christmas party of the Tuesday Club at EDSA Shangri-La in Manda-luyong City, the shoe-throwing incident was the butt of jokes yesterday as everybody wondered aloud whether the same could happen to President Arroyo. Everyone was in agreement it won’t happen to her. All concurred Mrs. Arroyo is already a veteran of such kind of heckling where she emerges unscathed because her burly Presidential Security Group (PSG) escorts make sure no one could get nowhere near to inflict harm on her.

We have the same kind of adversarial press in the Philippines, but we don’t have a shoe-throwing culture like the one displayed by that Iraqi newsman. We likewise have the distinction of the freest media in this part of the world. But the Philippines had also acquired the notorious recognition as the “most dangerous place” for journalists in the world, next to Iraq.

Meanwhile, I’m giving way to Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Teddy Casiño who sent a Letter to the Editor to our Philstar website editors, except to me. He was reacting to my column Wednesday about his oratory at the impeachment hearing at the House committee on justice. Casiño claimed most of his statements during that public hearing, which is by the way televised by ANC News Channel, were supposedly quoted out of context, “hence this letter to clarify matters.” So here goes:

“Marichu alleges that I cited the impeachment as a political process “to highlight that the impeachment was not meant to find out whether or not the subject of the impeachment complaint was guilty or not guilty” and “to justify the apparent failure of the complainants and their sponsors to present evidence that would buttress their complaints.”

Just to be clear, when the members of the House Justice Committee determines the “sufficiency in substance” of an impeachment complaint, it is never a ruling on the guilt or innocence of the respondent (in this case, the President). All that is required at that stage is a “recital of facts” constituting the impeachable offense. In fact, even if the House, after hearing, finds sufficient grounds to impeach the President and sends the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial, that is still not a ruling on the respondent’s guilt or innocence. All that the House can rule upon is a finding of “probable cause.” It is the Senate that conducts the trial and rules on the guilt or innocence of the President.

So when I said “Huwag ninyo kaming hanapan ng ebidensya,” I was just emphasizing that under Rule III, Section 4 of the Rules of Impeachment, the complainants are not yet required to present their evidence at that stage of the determination of “sufficiency in substance.” Presentation of evidence comes much later, after sufficiency in substance is determined and the President has replied to the charges. This is not to say that the complainants did not have any evidence. Hundreds of pages worth of annexes were, in fact, attached to the complaint, ready to be presented as evidence at the proper time. Former Speaker Jose de Venecia’s testimony at the hearing was just a sampling of the “beef” that was prematurely being demanded of us.

That the impeachment is a political process does not discard the presumption of innocence enjoyed by the President. Precisely because we presume the President to be innocent she has to be accorded due process. And due process dictates that she be made to answer to the very serious charges leveled against her. Unfortunately, the Justice Committee never gave her that chance by erroneously ruling that the complaint lacked a ‘recital of facts.’ By not asking the President to answer, the Committee effectively prevented us from presenting our evidence and denied due process both to the respondent and the complainants.

Worse, the Committee ruled that the old charges involving the NBN-ZTE contract, the ‘Hello Garci’ fraud, the North Rail project, the fertilizer fund scam and human rights violations were inadmissible under the doctrine of “res judicata” (double jeopardy) since these were already dismissed as “insufficient in substance” in previous complaints. In effect, this sets a precedent where a President can insulate him/herself from impeachment for the duration of his/her term by causing the filing and dismissal of a weak complaint.

At the end of the day, impeachment IS a political process. Former President Joseph Estrada was impeached by the House without the complainants and endorsers ever having been required to present their evidence in a committee hearing. All it took was 87 signatures and the House Speaker’s novel opening-prayer-cum-referral for that complaint to quickly reach the Senate for trial.”

Obviously, Casiño merely confirmed the points that I’ve raised in that column. But it’s a useless exercise to beat a dead horse.