Yesterday, Malacañang operatives once again sent a message to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to step down as presiding officer of the impeachment trial. It was just the latest in a long series of moves by the palace against Enrile, whom Malacañang has long seen as too much of a maverick to facilitate the conviction of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Once again, Enrile refused to step aside. And his performance at yesterday’s trial was his way of challenging Malacañang, the prosecutors and his palace-allied colleagues in the Senate: Remove me as Senate president first, if you can.
Given the monomaniacal pursuit by the administration of Corona’s conviction, a Senate coup to remove Enrile must already have long been planned. The fallout from the ouster of Enrile must not even matter to these plotters (who are led by a certain newly-converted Harley-Davidson fanatic and his boss); they need Corona convicted, that is the extent of their planning.
But this strategy could prove to be a political nightmare like nothing President Noynoy Aquino has seen in his short, turbulent stay at the palace. Which shouldn’t them from attempting to pull it off, naturally.
But like an aging Harry Callahan, Enrile dared his tormentors just the same: Go ahead, punks. Make my day.
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When word went out that Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago was attending yesterday’s continuation of the impeachment trial of Corona, many people applauded. The absence of the feisty, articulate and legally astute Ilongga senator, after all, was sorely felt in the first week of the hearings.
But even if Santiago was able to strut her stuff in the session hall, it was the presiding officer, Enrile, who stole yesterday’s show. Enrile appeared on the verge of quitting as head of the court, publicly declaring that perhaps he could no longer be capable of doing the job.
The entire proceedings could be placed in jeopardy, if Enrile’s steady hand is removed from the rudder of that often unruly and always politically-charged court. But that would apparently make the people who want to convict Corona happy, since no further semblance of order, legality and due process would be required from the Senate, once Enrile is out of the way.
People close to the trial have long known about the intense pressure being exerted on Enrile to step aside as head of the Senate, so that the conviction of Corona may proceed according to Malacañang’s plan and timetable. But the octogenarian senator repeatedly resisted the palace’s overtures, preferring instead to exercise his duties as presiding officer with a view to one last shot at glory before his long career as a politician ends.
Yesterday, it all came to a boil. When the whiny chief prosecutor, Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. pleaded with Enrile for a more liberal and flexible interpretation of the rules, the Senate president could no longer hold back his frustration.
Did Tupas want the court to admit hearsay and did he want it to allow leading and argumentative questions? Just how liberal and flexible did the prosecution (or the Senate, for that matter) want the rules interpreted before they were satisfied?
Enrile launched into a soft-spoken rebuke of everyone in the court, his voice growing wearier with each sentence. Had he been wrong in applying his long knowledge of the law to the trial, simply because the prosecution and its allies among the senators could not tell him exactly what alternative rules to employ?
Then, Enrile served notice to those who feel that he has not been fair, impartial and, yes, liberal. If the Senate no longer wants him to remain as presiding officer, he will step down.
And because the prosecution was again not ready to present a long-promised memorandum, the hearing was mercifully adjourned. How the people plotting to convict Corona (and remove Enrile in order to do so) will react to the Senate president’s challenge is not yet known.
It’s your move, punks. If you feel lucky.
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Speaking of rigging trials, the marital problems of Ambassador to Mexico Francisco “Paqui” Ortigas III have been giving people who enjoy poking fun at the rich and famous a lot to talk about—when they’re not discussing the Corona impeachment trial. But the very public humiliation Ortigas is enduring from his wife of 43 years, Susana Bayot Ortigas, could actually be more than just a simple case of a woman fed up with her husband’s philandering.
Ortigas has finally broken his silence on what he clearly explained was a private matter between he and his wife Susana. The businessman said he has kept his peace in deference to a pending case of infidelity and because this is essentially a private matter.
Of course, the lurid details of Ortigas’ supposed infidelities, as detailed in Mrs. Ortigas’ affidavit, have already been published in another major newspaper. But Ortigas has alleged that the disclosures are part of an orchestrated public-relations campaign against him that was clearly vicious and malicious.
Our own informants allege it is possible that all the so-called incidents enumerated in the concubinage complaint have fabricated and that the witnesses paid or coerced. These sources say that the lawyer of Mrs. Ortigas has long been known to be an expert in manipulating the legal process, including using the media.
For instance, as part of the supposed campaign to vilify the ambassador,all newspaper articles damaging to him are religiously e-mailed to, among others, the employees of Ortigas & Co. Limited Partnership and even (for some strange reason) the Consulate of El Salvador. Why this campaign is being waged is clear: money, lots of it.
The sources say that Mrs. Ortigas and her siblings want control over the conjugal properties of the spouses to fund the development projects of Madrigal-Bayot real estate corporations. This, after sales for “The Address” residential condo, a the project of Madrigal-Bayot Development Corp., didn’t take off as expected.
Apparently, the series of malicious news articles are part of on-going attempts to blackmail Ortigas into executing a quitclaim over his shares in the conjugal properties owned by him and his wife. “This is basically a case of high-society extortion,” said one.
On the other hand, the people out to demonize Ortigas simultaneously seek to portray his wife, a member of the landed Madrigal clan, as some sort of model parent. Still, they do tend to go to extreme lengths to get the job done, like blaming Ortigas for the death in a jet-skiing accident of a son of the couple at the family-owned resort in Calatagan, Batangas.
Clearly, there is more than meets the eye in the made-for-tabloid story that is sending people into spasms of uncontrollable schadenfeude. Ortigas, who belongs to the wealthy family that developed the Greenhills shopping and residential district, among other successful real estate projects, was correct in saying his piece once and then vowing never to speak again.
The truth—and the bigger picture— will come out, eventually. And those in the know will have the last laugh.
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