Home > Op-ed | To bottom

The People’s Court

There is, after all, an alternative court for a people relentlessly in search of truth and justice. In this dark period of our national history, where efforts to oust a fraudulent president through people power and impeachment have seemingly become exercises in futility, a concerted and sustained action implemented by concerned citizens have caught national attention.

Dismissed by the Arroyo government and its (in)Justice secretary Raul Gonzales as nothing but a kangaroo court, the ongoing Citizen’s Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) dramatizes a people’s courage and determination to ferret out that truth and establish the basis of Arroyo’s illegitimate presidency. Of late, Malacañang has been perturbed, warning the CCTA’s organizers that they can be arrested and detained for sedition. Gonzales has the gall to cite possible offenses such as “usurpation of public function, illegal assembly and unlawful use of means of publication and unlawful utterances” when this government has precisely reneged on its duty to its constituents to investigate allegations of fraud committed in the last presidential elections. The Arroyo government has ignored and totally dismissed the charges of legitimate sectors that the presidency is under question. The CCTA is an assault to the government because it is a reminder of the latter’s inutility to act on the people’s issues and complaints. The paranoia of the government over the proceedings is an acknowledgment of its guilt and liability that it has refused to face all these months. What the legislative and the judicial branches failed to do, the CCTA has done. Where the Senate and Lower House faltered, the CCTA has assumed responsibility.

It is only right that the witnesses and others who are bravely testifying in the CCTA be encouraged and given the moral support as they hold the key to establishing the basis of the most fraudulent elections ever, the extent of corruption in government and the gravity of human rights violations inflicted on the people. Since when was the search for truth seditious? It can only happen under a regime that awaits a guilty verdict by the people. #

Home > Op-ed | Back to top