Guilty or Not Guilty? Impeachment Votes May Be the Midterm’s Precious Commodity

By Joey Salgado

This year’s midterm elections had the making of a political exercise as exciting as watching goldfish in an aquarium. But the fastbreak impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte by the House, and the Senate’s dedma response, just made the race a lot more interesting and the prize a whole lot bigger.

Move over, high prices. The Vice President’s looming impeachment trial will shape much of the midterm election’s discourse and rhetoric, and for bottom-dwelling administration candidates, possible last minute trade offs with the Dutertes.

This early, impeachment watchers are making a list of the 12 possible winners and checking it twice or thrice. Would they vote for Vice President Duterte’s conviction or acquittal? How would their election tilt the balance in the Senate? I have my list. Go do your own. I promise you it will be an entertaining exercise in armchair political analysis.

Tight Race

Administration candidates continue to dominate Pulse Asia’s January survey. It has been the same set of names since September last year, with little movement in the top four slots. The only exception, as we pointed out in our last piece, is game show host Willie Revillame who barged into the winning circle on the strength of his credentials as a dispenser of cash and jackets. He remains in the winning column, although with a lower share of votes.

The January survey also unveiled the resurrection of Senator Imee Marcos’ electoral chances. Also getting a boost is Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa who somehow funny-danced his way out of the controversy over extra-judicial killings (Those who haven’t seen De La Rosa’s imitation of the mid-90s “dancing baby” internet meme on his latest TV ad should consider themselves lucky). Whether the presidential sister and the former national police chief can sustain the momentum bears watching.

Reviewing the survey results released to media, we see a narrowing of percentages and a tightening in the clusters, with candidates bumping into each other, floors overlapping with ceilings. It will be a very competitive race. Historically, the April survey will give a definitive ranking.

We can expect the ruling alliance to go all out for its chosen 12, even if 12-0 is, right now, in the realm of “are you high?”. Their best scenario is 10-2, the worst 8-4. But the administration holds the clear advantage and it needs to muster all its resources for the fight of a lifetime. The midterms will test the President’s political instincts, the strength of his local machinery, and the bounds of his political capital. There is no turning back.

Precious votes

The latest from Senate President Francis Escudero is that the impeachment trial will only start after the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July and not a day earlier, especially not in February, a month devoted to Heart and Fashion Week.
Escudero won’t be swayed by online vitriol, the opinion of legal experts, or the lectures from grammar nazis on the dictionary definition of “forthwith.” What part of wake us up when the SONA ends don’t you understand?

Re-electionist senators are definitely relieved by the decision to freeze the ball on the impeachment trial, a political minefield in a tight race.

And the Marcos administration has spotted opportunities in the crisis created by the Senate, going by the recent barrage of statements coming from the House of Representatives.

The House prosecution team and the more articulate congressmen from safe districts can now exploit the media’s laser focus on political stories in an election season to remind the public of the Vice President’s many sins of commission, the constant repetition intended to convict her in the public mind.

The delay also resolves, tentatively, the numbers problem. The prevailing view is that the administration would have a better chance of securing a guilty verdict with a new set of senators than with the chamber’s current composition.

Underlying this perspective is an intrinsic trust in the virtue of political loyalties even if several administration candidates have either been coy or unashamed about their closeness to the Dutertes. Wink, wink to manang Imee.

The decision is risky, but the gains are sky high.

At stake are political futures and fortunes and, for some, personal safety. The Dutertes are not a family you would want to see back in power in 2028. Their enemies’ list has gotten longer since last year but they would have six years to exact payback. Exile to some remote frozen hut in Europe is an option but damn the exchange rate is a killer.

Conviction would bar Sara Duterte from public office. By 2028, former president Rodrigo Duterte would be too old and feeble to mount a comeback, a pathetic vision of a patriarch clawing his way back to restore the family honor.

The Dutertes will surely leverage their strength in Mindanao for a “not guilty” verdict. Such a proposition will be tempting for survey bottom dwellers. But the Dutertes, like the President, will be sealing deals based on trust and word of honor, rare and malleable virtues these days. Conviction or acquittal thus becomes a precious tradable commodity in the midterms.

This article also appears in Rappler