Drilon to Marcos: Call special session now
President Marcos must call a special session of Congress to allow the Senate to immediately convene as an impeachment court to try impeached Vice President Sara Duterte and reach a decision before the midterm elections in May, former Senate President Franklin Drilon said on Saturday.
The Buhay ang People Power Network, a broad coalition of church leaders, civil society groups, sectoral and nongovernmental organizations, also urged the Senate to immediately hold a special session to set up the impeachment court as mandated by the Constitution.
“The special session is necessary to start the process … because the impeachment court can only be convened upon the referral by the Senate of the impeachment complaint in a plenary session,” Drilon told the Inquirer over the phone. “After the impeachment court is convened, it will have its own life.”
On Wednesday, the Senate adjourned without noting that an impeachment complaint against Duterte had been transmitted to the chamber on that day after it was signed by 215 members of the House of Representatives.
Congress is scheduled to resume its regular session on June 2, after the May 12 midterm polls.
According to former Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita “Ging” Deles of Tindig Pilipinas, which is part of the Buhay network, the Constitution did not say that the senators should wait for their recess to end or “move only at their convenience.”
“That’s our only call to our leaders … follow the Constitution,” she said on Friday.
Deles cited Section 3 of the 1987 Constitution which stated that after the Senate receives the articles of impeachment the impeachment trial “shall forthwith proceed.”
Can avoid ‘complications’
Drilon said 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.
The former Senate leader, who had 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, said that this might be the first time that the trial of an impeached official would be carried over to the next Congress and prolong the process.
“The impeachment trial should be finished before the term of this Congress expires to provide stability to our political system and … that is why there is a need for a special session,” Drilon said.
Chiz in no hurry
President Marcos said on Thursday that he would call a special session if the Senate requested it.
But Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero insisted that there was no reason to expedite the trial while Congress was in recess.
“Who’s in a hurry? Ask them to point out which law mandates that we should rush,” he said in an interview with radio dwIZ.
Escudero said even the 1987 Constitution did not explicitly state that the Senate should immediately constitute itself into an impeachment court upon receipt of a verified impeachment complaint.
‘Ordinary’ process
“They always mention the word ‘immediately,’ but it is not in the Constitution. The Constitution only mentioned the word ‘forthwith,’ which they claim means ‘immediately,’” Escudero said.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines that word as “immediately.” The Oxford English Dictionary says it means “immediately, at once, without delay or interval.”
According to Escudero, the efforts to unseat Duterte as the country’s second highest public official should be treated as an “ordinary” process.
“Is the Vice President special for us to treat this as special? She’s like all other impeachable officers in our eyes and there’s no reason for us to rush or delay the proceedings,” he said.
“We will not listen to those who want to immediately start the trial because they are angry at Duterte. We will not also 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.
Besides, Escudero said that the President may only call on Congress to hold a special session to tackle a declaration of martial law or to pass important measures.
Drilon, a former justice secretary, countered Escudero’s position, saying 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?” he said.
He argued that there was no need for the President to seek the senators’ opinion on whether they wanted to hold Duterte’s trial during their legislative recess.
Koko agrees
“I don’t think the Supreme Court will even intervene if the President calls for a special session,” he said. “That is a constitutional prerogative which he alone can exercise.”
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III agreed that a special session was necessary. If the process is started only in June, 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.
Responding to Escudero, Kiko Aquino Dee, executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, said that deciding to “delay further” what had been delayed by the House, would “make it even worse.”
“Even though it is true that the complaint was transmitted to the Senate at the last minute, and we expressed our frustration with the House of Representatives … two wrongs don’t make a right,” said Dee, a grandson of the late President Corazon Aquino and one of the first impeachment complainants.
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.
‘Can’t lie her way out’
Speaking at a news conference for the first time after she was impeached, Duterte on Friday denied the assassination plan.
In a statement on Saturday, House Assistant Majority Leaders Pammy Zamora, Zia Alonto Adiong and Jay Khonghun, called her out for lying, saying her denial “was 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.
Adiong added that Duterte was “trying to play the victim, but she is the one who put herself in this mess.”
“She threw a tantrum, blurted out highly dangerous statements, and now that she realizes the legal consequences, she is pretending none of it happened. But the public is not stupid,” he said.
Two of the seven articles of impeachment focused on Duterte’s Nov. 23, 2024, disclosure of her plan during a profanity-laden tirade against the Marcos administration.
The National Bureau of Investigation has not yet released the results of its probe on whether Duterte could be held criminally liable.
Reacting to this delay, Khonghun said, “If this were anyone else, they would already be in handcuffs.”
“The Filipino people deserve answers,” he said. “VP Sara Duterte must not be allowed to get away with lying to the public and evading responsibility.”
