The Philippine Online Chronicles

All week long dark patches of rainclouds threatened but didn’t bring down the rain, which was par for the course for a January kind of weather.  A fine time sana for a quiet game of chess with Egay the barber but which, of course, didn’t happen as the barbershop “debaters” were there just waiting for me.

They let the barbershop door closed behind me naman before they started the “siege.”

“Amateurs,” George the “professor” greeted me with a smirk.

“Greenhorns,” followed up  ancient Amang, wise man or wise guy, depending, letting out his tongue.

“Tenderfoots,” added street-smart Buting, inspecting his nicotine-stained fingernails.

Egay was not to be left out. “Di handa… pipitsugin.”

“Dapat siguro  kumuha tayo  ng mas matatangkad at matitipuno,” I muttered, guessing that the group was talking about the drubbing  our barangay basketball team got last week during a game with a neighbor barangay squad of tall and muscled players.

“We are not talking about our (expletive) basketball team,” said Amang, stoned-faced. “We are talking about the prosecutors and their lawyers in the impeachment trial of the CJ.”

That made me look  all wet. But quickly recalling to mind the editorial cartoon in the Daily Tribune (January 20,2012) showing an obviously tense prosecutor, I invoked a time-and-time-again excuse to explain first-day or first-time miscues. “First day jitters… I guess.”

I took the silence that followed and continued. “First day jitters or not,  we, I mean the prosecution, got the Senate-court to reject ‘for want of merit’  a motion by the defense for a preliminary trial. Got also the Senate-court to declare the “raps against the CJ valid.” The prosecution was not cited for contempt, either.”

Buting chuckled. “And the procurator, este,  prosecutor Tupaz, as if he was in Rome before a mob – after  intoning Cromwell’s  “It is high time for us to put an end to you sitting in that place which you have dishonored… as you have sold your country for a mess of pottage… like Judas Escariot…” -  telling the CJ ; “In the name of God, go!”

“And perhaps…” wise guy Amang said, “… believing his own hands to be clean Tupaz cast the first stone.”

“Now let’s talk about the trial itself,” said George.

I  grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure you do,” said Egay. “You came in di handa. So you proposed to postpone na lang the hearing, to which the presiding Senate Preident quipped:”Oh, so you  wanted postponement all along.”

George said: “I must commend you, I mean the prosecution, for that great move to summon the family of the CJ.  You know, as all lawyers do, it won’t wash but still you went ahead because  what you really wanted was to  picture the family of the CJ as in cahoots with the CJ in the looting.”

“Still,” I said. “we, I mean the prosecution, was able to compel the SC Clerk of Court to produce the CJ’s SALNs notwithstanding an SC order to the contrary. Pretty good, huh?”

“Yes, but with the help of a senator-judge we know  will cast a vote of we-know-what, no matter how things turned out,” said the “professor.”

Buting chuckled. “For almost two hours, your ace prosecutor/lawyer tried but failed, even turning your supposedly friendly witness into a hostile one, which the Senate President also noticed.”

“And reminded the proseuciton so,” Egay said.

“Some vaunted “veteran litigation lawyer” you got!”

“Still, we, I mean the prosecution, got what it wanted. And the good senator/judge you thiink was lawyering for the prosecution  has denied acting so.”

“But of course!,” George, Amang, Egay and Buting chorused.

“Di ba he even dared that meddling spectator to disqualify him?”

Amang, ever  the wise man or wise guy, depending, said: “ The good senator/judge could have told the meddling spectator in a nicer way, and not in a jawling manner. Ano bang masama kung tinutulungan niya ang prosecution? As some people think,  that’s what he’s in there for.”

“Last time I read,” said Buting, whose “barker station”  is near a newspaper stand where  he scans the papers, for free, of course,  “Cuevas and company want the good senator/judge out of the trial.”

“Which has no basis as the Senate court said so,” I told Buting.

“Last time I also read ,” Buting continued, “a writer in the op-ed section of a broadsheet (because of its size only) was bemoaning the fact that the defense has these battery of de kampanilya lawyers while…”

I interrupted Buting, “… while the prosecutors,  though some of whom are lawyers, have not been practicing…”

Buting cut me.”… but have neen praticing… practicing… and have grown adept at… oh, you know what I mean!”

“The bottom line,” said George, “is a man’s pagkatao and even his life are at stake here and we can’t trifle with that. It’s not like a tenant/farmer is accused and judged at the same time of raiding the granary just ecause the cacique says so.”

“And last time I read,” Buting continued, “ the prosecution  this time  wants the impeachment trial rules relaxed because  they think the “dilatory” tactics of the defense  was getting in the way of “ferreting out the truth” and the speeding up of the trial.”

Amang smirked. “They railroaded the impeachment proceedings  nuon, baka makalusot uli ngayon.”

On my way home, I recalled reading the headline of a newspaper that barked: “Defending CJ a tough job.” Didn’t notice it then , but nowhere in the accompanying story was  the quoted statement attributed to. Sort of pep talk to the prosecution, I guess.

And that tv grab of the impeachment trial where the prosecutor/lawyer, natty in coat and tie, and now and then winking and smiling sheepishly,  was confronting his weitness I have seen before. Many times in telenovelas  the missus loves to watch, in which similar scenes  were being played out by actors but now by real lawyers looking like they were just hamming it up.

Manuel Calleja used to work as a copywriter with advertising agencies.  In his retirement, he does community outreach, including serving as Lupon Tagapamayapa in his barangay in Quezon City. He recently won third place in a national essay writing contest sponsored by National Bookstore and Philippine Star.

Photo from photo release of the Philippine Senate. Some rights reserved.