Gross power play
When the gavel banged down at the House of Representatives late Monday afternoon, the final count was historic: 257 yes (first erroneously reported as 255), 25 no, and nine abstain. Not only was Vice President Sara Duterte impeached for the second time, but the sheer number of affirmative votes—way more than the 215 in the foiled 2025 impeachment bid—was also a record, the biggest such impeachment tally in Philippine history.
What accounted for the change of heart in many more lawmakers? The likely answer is the weight of proof presented against Duterte at the committee on justice, all of which went unrebutted because the Vice President and her legal team refused to participate in the proceedings. Not even Duterte’s three family members in the House bothered to show up in any of the hearings to defend her.
Even with such default leeway, the panel, chaired by Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Luistro, commendably steered clear of indulgent, sensationalist actions, instead allowing the proceedings to lay bare the evidence and testimonies against Duterte in a clear, methodical, transparent manner. In the end, many lawmakers saw the mass of evidence for what it was: overwhelming enough to compel them to endorse holding Duterte to account via the constitutional process of impeachment.
Silver lining
In hindsight, there was a silver lining to the much-decried decision by the Supreme Court to void the earlier similar attempt against Duterte. Critics had pointed out that the high court was rewriting the Constitution when it required a number of new steps before an impeachment case could be transmitted to the Senate, such as holding hearings at the committee level to allow the respondent to counter the charges.
This meant more tedious work for the House, but to their credit, Luistro and her peers in the justice panel took their work seriously. They assiduously adhered to the Supreme Court’s new definition of timelines, conducted the hearings efficiently and on point, and repeatedly invited Duterte’s camp to show up and refute the four grounds that eventually made up the articles of impeachment.
To no avail—which means the outcome, with many more lawmakers across parties and interests ultimately supporting the case, was entirely Duterte’s doing.
The battle now shifts to the Senate, which is mandated to convene itself into an impeachment court and render judgment on Duterte. But things feel touch-and-go at this point, with a majority of Duterte-allied senators having engineered a quick coup to oust Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and replace him with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, just hours before the House formalized the impeachment raps against Duterte.
Disgraceful spectacle
Conventional wisdom has long had it that the House, with its virtual menagerie of provincial barons and splintered dynastic and sectoral interests, was the more raffish, rambunctious chamber in Congress. The Senate, on the other hand, with its 24 members elected nationally, was supposedly the august one, the bastion of statesmen and leaders of the highest caliber.
Monday’s events stood that thinking on its head. The House proved it could conduct the impeachment proceedings with marked sobriety and dignity, while the Senate degenerated into a disgraceful spectacle when Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa suddenly materialized after six months of nonattendance and promptly made a scene on the Senate floor.
Why Dela Rosa was there was clear for all to see: to pad the votes that would flip control of the chamber to the new Duterte-allied majority. Notwithstanding Cayetano’s pious protestations that this gross power play was not in service to Duterte’s looming impeachment, the discerning public could very well see the chessboard being violently upended to ensure that, first of all, a more accommodating, sympathetic atmosphere awaited the VP once her impeachment trial began.
A hideout for a fugitive
The leadership grab also ensured that, for now, Dela Rosa could use the Senate as a refuge, following the release of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against him. Dela Rosa had abandoned his job to go into hiding while still earning his salary and keeping his office, which employed a raft of his relatives, open. That he would now surface, after having defied the law, just to ensure that the Duterte camp had the upper hand in the Senate was sordid, reprehensible behavior without equal in this country’s history.
And so is the Cayetano-led Senate decision to grant him sanctuary, effectively making the chamber—once home to such giants as Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, and Jovito Salonga—a hideout for a fugitive charged with crimes against humanity, and the senators themselves, by taking him into “protective custody,” blatant accomplices in obstructing justice.
Surveys have shown that a majority of the public wants Duterte’s impeachment trial to push through. The credibility and standing of the Senate, now in a precarious state, rests on heeding that paramount call for truth and accountability.
******
Get real-time news updates: inqnews.net/inqviber
