PROs & CONs... of executive clemency

I don't have any reservations about Mrs. Arroyo's prerogative to grant executive clemency; neither do I cast doubt on the legality and her intention to do so. She must really have reconciliation in her mind when she issued the reprieve. I am aware that possibly an ample number of our people truly crave for a genuine resolution to a lingering squabble between the Arroyos vis a vis the Estradas, the only question was, can this pardon helps in bringing the two faction together to a more better relationship and mutual collaboration? Doña Mary's state of health offer good sense of purpose and motivation in bringing this pardon a more agreeable executive action, I do sympathize with Erap on this concern. I also ponder constructively on the aspect of giving back the plunder/loot including all profit derive from it.

As much as I want to give GMA the benefit of the doubt on this clemency issue, a part of my brain was still much unsympathetic, concerning the of granting of pardon and just about to be overstress in assuming the other way around. On the reconciliation concern as a given factor in the issuance of pardon, I still can’t accept as true that the Erap advocates especially his political wards both in congress and in the senate will act honestly and stop political criticisms and allusions of graft and corruption heave at the First Couple, given that they have incorporated a sort of political armistice as a precondition appended on the executive action.

Complementing to my anxiety on the reconciliation subject was the pronouncement last night at the ANC program by Atty. Rene Saguisag a staunch supporter of Erap when he stated that Erap had no intention of kowtowing to Malacañang wishes, now that he was given the reprieve, and at the same time branded the President a usurper of power that drove Estrada out of the seat of influence/supremacy and the act of giving pardon to Estrada was a way of GMA to correct a mistake imposed on Erap. At one time he even declared that we the middleclass and the upper class members’ of society are just horde of lynch rabble troublemakers whose foremost objective was to derail program s of President Erap to empower the underprivileged masses. If mutual collaboration were without a doubt ingredient of the negotiated attachment to the reprieve, I was astonished why a lead legal representative of Erap has the audacity to verbalize these mouthfuls of expression if those words didn’t originate from the horses’ mouth. This was not the only instance I took notice of him disclosing the viewers of statements like those of last night but umpteenth time for sure.

Looking forward to the return of the plundered money back to the government as a gratifying section of the executive clemency supporting documents, one can ponder if that order of the Sandiganbayan was an easy task to accomplish knowing how large the sum of money that was involved in it. Will the Estrada family let go of this ill gotten wealth? With that amount of riches they could compensate an array of excellent lawyers just to derail or slowdown a move to recoup or retrieve the money. I agree the agency of government will be able to get a grasp of that monies but I also believe it will not be in a year or two, not in five years time but a much longer period considering the impudence of lawyers to circumvent and outwit existing edicts and laws especially in civil cases like this, thus preventing government to use the loot to a much productive endeavor and projects that will benefit the true victims of the plunder done by the former President.










"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."