The Impeachment Complaint is Dead. Time to Prepare for 2028

By Joey Salgado

Only two impeachment complaints have been archived by the Senate in the past: those against former president Joseph Estrada and former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Estrada was ousted from office and Gutierrez resigned. No matter how one parses the definition of archiving, these two complaints were already dead when they were ordered archived. Archiving is the equivalent of political internment.

So pardon me if I’m not optimistic about the possibility of reviving the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte which was archived by the Senate.

It was the Senate’s way of declaring, by a vote of 19 in favor, that the impeachment complaint against the Vice President is dead. And even if the Supreme Court reverses itself, and bless those who hold on to this prayer, we all know how the senators would vote in the end. So why prolong the inevitable?

From the time the House transmitted the articles of impeachment against the Vice President, the Senate under Senate President Francis Escudero has treated the trial as one would a pebble stuck in a shoe. It was not a Constitutional mandate to perform but an inconvenience that needed to be removed.

The Supreme Court decision, stripped clean of its erudite and lyrical prose, is an encroachment into a domain exclusively reserved by the Constitution to Congress. It’s like a carpenter telling a plumber how to do his job.

Instead of asserting its authority, the Senate yielded.

By voting to archive the impeachment complaint forthwith, the Escudero Senate became a willing accomplice to its own castration. But it surrendered more than its balls. The Senate surrendered its long-held tradition of independence and integrity, of placing national interests above political loyalties.The Escudero Senate has shown that it can be just as partisan as the House, and unashamed to display its flag.

The Senate also lost what remains of its moral authority to check government abuses. How can the senators now lecture public officials on accountability without sounding like hypocrites?

Echo chamber

For a deliberative body, the Senate on Wednesday sounded like an echo chamber. Those who voted to archive stood on the floor to pontificate about the majesty of the law, the value of due process, and the wisdom of the highest court to which everyone must bow to (an outlandish declaration if one considers how legislators have made a mockery of the tribunal’s decision outlawing pork barrel by renaming it congressional insertions).

Like Escudero, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano berated the House for using impeachment as a political tool. He dared them, and all impeachment supporters, to just face the Vice President in 2028 and let the people decide her fate. Conveniently, Cayetano failed to acknowledge that the issue involves accountability and fitness for the position, a moral yardstick that Cayetano had invoked in the past in his demolition work on previous presidential contenders, namely former Senate President Manny Villar and former Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Twist of fate

The Supreme Court decision and the Senate’s surrender of its prerogative has transformed Vice President Duterte into a political martyr in the eyes of her supporters.

It’s a cruel twist of fate for the victims of political persecution and extrajudicial killings during the disgraceful rule of former president Rodrigo Duterte, the Vice President’s father.

The repercussions, however, will be felt in the months leading to the presidential election. The public has been denied the opportunity to hear all the evidence against the Vice President, and by extension, the court ruling and the Senate vote denied her the opportunity to respond. She may be regarded as the frontrunner now, but these issues, unresolved and festering, will surely hound her in 2028.

Time to work

Democracy is founded on faith; faith in abiding goodness and decency, in the courage and wisdom of learned men and women who inhabit its revered institutions.

Faith that when power is abused and the system of checks and balances is tilted to favor one institution or one person, the others will move to restore balance.

But what happens to democracy when both chambers of Congress are seen as afflicted with institutional rot and the Supreme Court is excoriated for providing refuge to officials evading accountability?

A firm and forceful President may be seen yet again as a necessity, one who would restore order and balance but this time within the democratic framework.

This makes the 2028 presidential elections even more important. Time to roll up our sleeves.

This article also appears in Rappler