“The gravity of the charges against the second highest elective official requires that she should face the Senate acting as the impeachment court at the soonest possible time”
IF THE House of Representatives took two months to come up with the fourth impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte before transmitting it to the Senate, why would they now want the Senate to immediately convene as the impeachment court?
That was the question asked by Senate President Francis ’Chiz’ Escudero the day after the fourth impeachment complaint was received by the Senate Secretary.
It’s the wrong question to ask, from where we sit.
The correct question that should be asked by the Senate is: How can we help achieve the ends of justice and uphold the rule of law in the fastest way possible?
And our answer here is this: Right now, not after the May midterm polls. Immediately, not on June 2, when the 20th Congress opens its first session. And forthwith, not after four to six months, as our 1987 Constitution clearly states.
We are convinced that President Marcos Jr. must call a special session of the Senate to allow it to convene as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara Duterte and reach a decision before the midterm elections in May.
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon is right.
President Marcos Jr. should convene a special session of the Senate because this is necessary to start the process.
The impeachment court can only be convened upon the referral by the Senate of the impeachment complaint in a plenary session. After the impeachment court is convened, he said, “it will have its own life.”
We agree with Drilon that starting the impeachment trial proceedings at once would avoid legal complications that may arise if the 19th Congress fails to decide on Duterte’s fate before it adjourned sine die, or without setting the date for convening again.
Drilon is a former Senate President and served as a senator-judge during the impeachment trials of then President Joseph Estrada in 2000 and the late Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2011, and therefore knows whereof he speaks.
He warned that this might be the first time that the trial of an impeached official would be carried over to the next Congress and therefore prolong the process. He believes the impeachment trial should be finished before the term of this Congress expires to provide stability to our political system.
Escudero, however, insists there is no reason to expedite the trial
as efforts to unseat Duterte as the country’s second highest public official should be treated as an “ordinary” process.
“We will not listen to those who want to immediately start the trial because they are angry at Duterte. We will not also (sic) listen to those who don’t want to hold the trial because they are in favor of the Vice President. They are all partisan,” he said.
We disagree that the impeachment trial should be treated as an “ordinary process”.
We concur with Drilon that exacting accountability should be treated with exigency: “If the Constitution allows a special session to be called for ordinary legislation, how much more with a process required under the Constitution to make our officials accountable?”
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III also agrees with the view that a special session is necessary to be convened at once. If the process is started only in June, or even after the President’s State of the Nation Address on July 21, more than three months would be wasted, he said.
“Letting three and a half months go by without doing any action is not ‘forthwith.’ That’s why we need to start the process early,” he said.
The Vice President is accused of culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes.
The charges against her include misuse of up to P612.5 million in confidential funds and her threat to have Mr. Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated in case an alleged plot to kill her succeeds.
We agree completely with the three House Assistant Majority Leaders—Pammy Zamora, Zia Alonto Adiong and Jay Khonghun—who have called out the Vice President for lying and denying any wrongdoing as “ a desperate and clumsy attempt to erase her own reckless statements from public memory.”
“VP Sara Duterte cannot lie her way out of this,” Zamora said.
For Adiong, Sara Duterte was “trying to play the victim, but she is the one who put herself in this mess.”
For Khonghun, ‘the Filipino people deserve answers…VP Sara Duterte must not be allowed to get away with lying to the public and evading responsibility.”
The gravity of the charges against the second highest elective official requires that she should face the Senate acting as the impeachment court at the soonest possible time.
(Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)
