TWENTY-three senators donned their deep red robes as the Senate convened into an impeachment court on Monday, May 18. The gesture officially started the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, impeached on numerous grounds – culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, bribery, and other high crimes.
Compared to the events taking place at the Senate in the past week and the uncertainty over what would happen next, the spectacle of the lawmakers putting on their robes was oddly calming, like a pause before a tempest. For those brief minutes, the physical and moral weight of the robe did not appear to be lost on the senators. Their faces showed they acknowledged what the robe stood for in the context of governance and democracy. They were serious as they raised their right hands and vowed to perform their role with impartiality.
At least, it looked that way.
Senators’ actions in the past week have marred the Senate’s reputation anew. Knowing that the articles of impeachment would be transmitted from the House of Representatives, senators quickly engineered a leadership change so that a pro-Duterte senator would be its leader by the time they received the articles. The numbers game prompted now-Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano to ask Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa – wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity — to emerge after six months of hiding to make his vote count, guaranteeing protection from arrest. After three days, Dela Rosa escaped the Senate premises, escorted by another Senator, the action star Robinhood Padilla. Dela Rosa, the 24th senator, is absent once again after discharging his partisan vote, turning himself into a caricature, and showing too much candor in an interview with journalist Jessica Soho.
During Monday’s session, two senators — Juan Miguel Zubiri and JV Ejercito — who had abstained from the leadership vote declared themselves with the minority.
The next few days will bear watching.
It may be too much to hope that all senators are aware that their duty lies not to their political patron, but to the Filipino people who deserve to know the truth.
Or to hope that the senators realize that the issue of impeachment exposes transgressions that transcend any one personality. A helpful exercise: if anybody from the opposite side of the political fence is accused of the same things, with equally strong proof, where would they now stand?
It could be illusory that the robed senators would come to work shedding their political and personal affiliations and evaluate the case on pure merit and strength of evidence.
The people will watch closely — how the trial is conducted, how the questions are asked, how logic takes the senators from premise to proof to conclusion, or whether they are receptive or resistant to what would be presented to them. We will also note the realignments, knowing where their personal circumstances, loyalties, and reverence for the truth would take them.
Ultimately we will see whether the senators will dignify their regalia – or morally wither underneath it.
