Senate as impeachment court

Ten days ago, Feb. 5, at around 5:50 p.m., minutes before session adjourned, the Senate formally received the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Inday Sara Duterte from the House of Representatives. Feb. 5, for the information of our dear readers, was the last day of session for both houses of Congress.

My UP schoolmate since high school Senate President Francis Escudero discounted any impeachment proceedings while Congress is on recess from Feb. 6 to June 1, 2025.

Meanwhile, PBBM expressed his openness to call for a special session. SP Escudero, however, said there is no urgency for a special session. I have expressed my humble opinion on the matter. The President cannot call for a special session just so the Senate can sit as an impeachment court. Special sessions of Congress are intended only for legislative purposes. The Senate sitting as an impeachment court is not legislative in character. It is sui generis. The impeachment trial can only proceed when the senators have taken their oath as judges. This can only happen after the break on June 2 when there is plenary.

Impeachment rules, SP Escudero added, would be approved on June 2, but with required publication and response periods, the process could be extended until June 30 when the terms of the 23 senators expire.

All the signatures of the members of the House of Representatives have to be verified as “wet signatures,” meaning they are all handwritten, signed in front of the House Secretary-General. Electronic signatures or signatures that have been forwarded are not valid in impeachment complaints.

The state-run Philippine News Agency reported SP Escudero had announced that the impeachment trial against Vice President Duterte will start after the 4th State of the Nation Address of the President on July 21. This means the next Senate of the 20th Congress will constitute the impeachment court. For sure, congressmen who hastily signed the impeachment complaint, including those who might not have read it at all, were fully dismayed with the Senate’s reluctance to rush into the impeachment trial.

I have a different take on SP Escudero’s view that the Senate is a continuing institution. The Senate must commence impeachment trial on June 2 and conclude its hearing of the impeachment complaint vs. VP Sara on or before June 30, 2025. This is in pursuant to Balag vs Senate (where the Supreme Court ruled that Senate arrest warrants dissolve upon the expiration of the Senate).

My humble opinion on the matter is that the conduct of the Senate’s day-to-day business, the Senate of each Congress acts separately and independently of the Senate of the Congress before it. Due to the termination of the business of the Senate during the expiration of one Congress last Feb. 6, all pending matters and proceedings, such as unpassed bills and even legislative investigations, of the Senate are considered terminated upon the expiration of that Congress and it is merely optional on the Senate of the succeeding Congress to take up such unfinished matters, in the same status, but as if presented for the first time.

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal shared my view, when he opined that if the Senate cannot finish a trial before the 19th Congress ends, the next and 20th Senate should treat the complaint “as if it were filed for the first time.” Atty. Tranquil Salvador III, a defense lawyer during the 2012 Corona impeachment, likewise believes the 20th Congress cannot carry over the impeachment case against VP Sara, if it will spill over to the 20th Congress. This legal issue could be raised to the Supreme Court.

The question now: why is the House of Representatives rushing the impeachment? The easy answer is as clear as the sky: eliminate Inday Sara Duterte, the dominant candidate, in the political landscape through media demonization before Election Day. Anti-Duterte forces will surely milk the impeachment for all its worth to divert people’s growing discontent to the current bangungot presidency. After all, impeachment, as we have seen in previous impeachment trials, is a political drama where public opinion weighs heavily.

The impeachment of VP Inday is not about people’s quest for the truth and the accountability of public officers. It is about the Marcos Forever scheme and the only way for this evil plan to succeed is to disqualify the Vice President from holding public office for life.

Traditionally, midterm elections in the Philippines are seen as referendum of the incumbent President’s performance. The Marcos-Araneta-Romualdez triumvirate weaponized the impeachment against VP Sara in their desperation and used it as a distraction to divert public attention away from the real issues plaguing the country.

Instead of providing accountability for the bastardization of the most corrupt budget in history and the failure of the Marcos Jr. to address soaring prices, which resulted in the highest self-poverty in 21 years and the highest self-rated hunger since the COVID-19 lockdown, the current administration divided people over a looming impeachment drama.

Expect impeachment to become the election campaign issue. VP Sara’s impeachment has become the sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the candidates this election. For every campaign sortie, stop and event, candidates, especially those in the administration, will be placed in a bind as they will be asked to reveal and defend what their stand is.

We are currently facing more serious problems as a country, but we are now forced again to watch the largest circus in town, with impeachment as an interesting sideshow. This is all because we have a weak, clueless and out-of-touch administration under Marcos Jr., who failed miserably to deliver his campaign promise of unity and lower food prices to the Filipino people.