MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 20, 2007) A 45-year-old institution at the University of the Philippines has defended one of its former heads, erstwhile Magdalo group counsel Roberto Rafael Pulido, the lawyer who filed the controversial third impeachment complaint against President Macapagal-Arroyo in as many years.
"We wholly support Attorney Pulido's initiative, and regard his filing of the impeachment complaint as a perfectly legitimate action," the UP Alpha Sigma Fraternity Alumni Association Inc. said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
"We are absolutely convinced that public interest drove Attorney Pulido to independently file the complaint," it said.
The group rejected insinuations that Pulido, whom it called a "maverick," was induced into filing the complaint to supposedly to "immunize" the President for another year against a potentially stronger complaint.
"The strongest impeachment complaint can be reduced into the flimsiest charge once the House opposition is unable to gather the required signatures," the group pointed out.
"Conversely, the weakest complaint can become the most potent charge once the House opposition is forceful enough to muster the 80 signatures needed for the case to be sent to the Senate for trial," it said.
The group urged the opposition to get their act together, and "to stop using Pulido as the excuse for their inadequacies."
It also branded the escalating "power struggle" between the President and Speaker Jose De Venecia Jr. as "the fight of the "kontratistas" in the government.
"This is obviously a naked power feud between two equally morally bankrupt and rotten factions of the ruling elite," the group said.
Pulido, 42, is a protege of slain former UP Student Council chairman Lean Alejandro, and once headed the Alpha Sigma at the Diliman campus.
The leading members of the UP fraternity include Sen. Gregorio Honasan; Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman Benito Tiamzon; former CPP central committee secretary Jose Luneta; former CPP Mindanao commission chief Benjamin de Vera; and former Kabataang Makabayan chairman Nilo Tayag.
Two fraternity members -- Antonio Tagamolila and William Begg -- were killed as New People's Army (NPA) combatants during martial law. A Philippine Military Academy cadet when he defected to the NPA, Tagamolila was also editor-in-chief of the UP student paper, The Philippine Collegian.
Other prominent members of the UP fraternity include Mediaquest Holdings Inc. president Orlando Vea; One Asia Development Corp. president Victor Manarang; Actuarial Advisers Inc. president Mabini Juan; Newspaper columnist and former UP College of Law dean Raul Pangalangan; columnist and UP professor Randy David; newspaper columnist, creative writer and former UP vice president Jose Dalisay Jr.; newspaper editor Joy de los Reyes.
Former Marikina City Rep. Romeo Candazo; retired public works undersecretary Mabini Pablo; former education undersecretary Victor Manhit; former National Telecommunications Commission chief Ponciano Cruz; and former BayanTel Inc. chief finance officer and erstwhile student leader Gary Olivar.
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