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DON’T PUSH YOUR LUCK

Buencamino writes political commentary for Action for Economic Reforms.This article was published in Business Mirror, January 18, 2006 edition, p. A11.


This time there is no eyewitness to confirm Mrs. Gloria Arroyo is re-using Oliver Lozano for another auto-impeachment caper. This time no one overheard Mrs. Arroyo re-instruct political operative Gabriel Claudio to re-tell Representative Rodante Marcoleta to re-throw his hairpiece behind Lozano’s rehashed impeachment complaint. This time we only have Lozano’s word that he is acting on his own volition,

“I am re-filing the complaint to preempt the coup or a possible violent take over being hatched by disgruntled elements in the society ….I am giving them a message, look there’s better way to resolve the crisis and this is the better way,” he claimed.


It would be unfair to question Lozano’s professed noble motives. It would be rude to ask him, “Sending whom a message that this is a better way? Better for whom?”  We have to be civil and grant that Lozano is sincere.


Lozano said he won’t stop until Mrs. Arroyo comes clean:  “These impeachment efforts would never stop until she answers whether she really lied, stole or cheated.”  Well, that’s exactly what the pro-impeachment group in the House and an overwhelming majority of natives in this archipelago have been saying all along. So why did Lozano say: “If they can convince me that the deferment of this case until June would be good for the country, then I will defer. But if not, then I will go ahead”?


Lozano’s statement confuses me. Why the rush? Why did he refer to the pro-mpeachment representatives as “they,” if he shares their belief that an impeachment is the way to get truth and justice? Shouldn’t he be talking in terms of “us”? Or is it possible that he belongs to a different “us”? And, if so, who might this other “we” be? I can’t tell where Lozano stands.


I thought a statement from Surigao del Sur Representative Propero Pichay, Jr. and Eastern Samar Representative Marcelino Libanan would tell me exactly where Lozano pitched his tent.  Libanan said, “We don’t see any indication that their new impeachment complaint would be any different from this first batch they filed last year. With the same charges and the same group behind this, a new impeachment complaint is bound to suffer the same fate as the Lozano complaint.”


Other than the obvious fact that Libanan is still playing the con game that one impeachment complaint and its amendment are two totally different complaints, his statement doesn’t tell me anything about Lozano.


I had hoped House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles’ could tell me more, but the only thing he did was to threaten anyone who is preparing another impeachment complaint. He said, “Don’t push your luck” Well, the warning doesn’t help. As a matter of fact, it raises more questions than answers.  But then again, the Arroyo-Lakas-Kampi pirate ship is kept afloat by unanswered questions.


The only thing one can be dead certain of, other than the dead raccoon on that party-list congressman’s head, is how a preemptive complaint by Lozano will play out. We know “they” are it again because “they” expect another victory with an auto-impeachment re-enactment.


Thus, my animal activist friends and I have only two things to tell those zookeepers who are plotting to make monkeys of us again:  “Don’t push your luck” and “Roadkill is not meant to be worn as a hairpiece.”

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