Hard-nosed political observers do not expect the latest impeachment bid against GMA to really prosper. It has been repeatedly said that as a political exercise, impeaching the President is a numbers game where the substance and merits of the alleged offenses are of secondary importance compared to the need for political survival of the GMA administration and those closely allied with her.

Failing to muster the required 80 votes to bring the impeachment proceedings from the Lower House to the Senate, those who filed the impeachment complaint are again bound to be disappointed. And with them, those who simply want to know the truth.

Still, the repeated setting aside of the merits of the cases brought against the incumbent president, especially in the face of compelling evidence cannot be taken lightly without undermining the credibility and workings of the system of checks and balance that is the hallmark of any democratic system.

By pretending that the alleged crimes leveled against the President and her cohorts did not actually transpire, the administration congressmen become complicit in the alleged crimes. Instead of lifting us from the pit of despair over the present state of affairs in our country, they help dig the pit deeper, contributing to the rot and decay of our political system.

Our representatives in Congress may or may not have been actual parties to the looting of the public coffers, the killing of innocent citizens and the hijacking of the people’s mandate, but by closing their eyes and shutting off their ears to the pleas of the victims during the presentation of evidence, their hands become as bloody and their hearts as black as the actual perpetrators of the alleged crimes.

By throwing all moral considerations out of the window in the race for political supremacy, if not survival, as demanded by Malacanang, our representatives in Congress who voted against the impeachment bring us exactly to where we are now: a political climate where impunity rules. And all talks of transparency and accountability – the hallmarks of good governance – are empty words intended to lull the citizenry into submission and complacency.

So, we must and should ask our congressmen how they voted in this moral divide. For contrary to what the pundits say, impeachment is not just a political act and a numbers game. It is an ethical and moral issue, too.

As a fall-out of another failed impeachment against GMA, we can expect graft and corruption to flourish in both high and low places of the bureaucracy, a renewed upsurge in human rights violation and intense preparations for electoral fraud and other chicanery in the coming elections. Not necessarily in 2010 because plans are afoot to extend the terms of the all elective officials including that of the President.

One is again tempted to despair living in this country where good men and women are made to vanish or disappear, if not jailed or summarily executed, while the perpetrators of crimes against the people are praised and rewarded, oftentimes addressed as “honorables”.

But we are in the season of Advent, a season presaging the coming of redemption, peace and prosperity. So against all things that conspire to bring down our humanity, we will work and pray for justice and peace in our country.#