Faces of the News: June 15, 2025
Christian Monsod
The Senate leadership’s decision to further postpone the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte prompted some of the country’s brightest legal minds to again speak out. One of them was constitutionalist Christian Monsod, who rejoined the chorus calling on the senators to just do their duty.
Monsod was particularly critical of the motion floated by the so-called “Duterte bloc” in the Senate seeking the dismissal of the impeachment complaint against the Vice President. The motion, he said, would be a violation of the 1987 Constitution and therefore can be challenged in the Supreme Court. He also disputed the arguments made by Sen. Francis Tolentino that the impeachment complaint against the Vice President could not cross over to the next Congress.
Monsod also called out the senators for their prolonged discussions and procedural impasses especially over the meaning of the term “forthwith” in the Constitution. For him, this showed the level of constitutional literacy among the current occupants of the chamber. —DEMPSEY REYES
Joel Anthony Viado
Immigration Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado, who has worked quietly away from the spotlight since his appointment in October 2024, broke his silence last week to deny allegations of corruption and misconduct made by anonymous individuals claiming to be employees of the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
In a June 2 letter to President Marcos, a group of “concerned BI employees” accused Viado of abusing his authority, claiming among other things that he expedited the bail release of foreign nationals involved in the now-banned Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos), and that permanent quota visas under his term were allegedly being auctioned off to highest bidders.
In a series of statements from June 9 to June 11, Viado dismissed the allegations as “patently false,” describing them as “black propaganda” and retaliation from “underground operations” affected by his reforms in BI. He also disclosed developments internal to the bureau, like how he blocked an attempt to have Chinese businessman Tony Yang, who has been linked to Pogo operations, released on bail. —JANE BAUTISTA
Koko Pimentel and Risa Hontiveros
Even up to the last minute, Senators Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Risa Hontiveros made a stand as they tried to convince colleagues that shelving the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte without even hearing the case first would violate the 1987 Constitution.
Pimentel, the leader of the two-member minority bloc in the Senate, gave a glimpse of his legal acumen as he countered the motions made by pro-Duterte senators when the chamber finally convened as an impeachment court on Jan. 10. The 1990 bar topnotcher argued that the 38-year-old Charter explicitly mandated the senator-judges to carry out the impeachment proceedings “forthwith,” without asking the prosecutors of the House of Representatives for any additional requirement.
For her part, Hontiveros said the decision of 18 of their colleagues to send the articles of impeachment against the Vice President back to the House only introduced “unnecessary ambiguity to the already politically charged proceedings” and described the move as both “dangerous and disingenuous.” —MARLON RAMOS
Benjamin Netanyahu
In 2018, Iran ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his repeated warnings against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and his threats to dismantle it. On Friday, after two decades, Netanyahu made good on his threat and launched a massive air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and air defense sites.
The Israeli leader also said that the strikes, carried by 200 fighter jets on a hundred targets, killed three top military commanders and six of Tehran’s nuclear scientists. “Israel launched Operation Rising Lion … to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat,” Netanyahu said.
Making references to the Holocaust, he said “a generation of leaders failed to act in time” and that this delay led to the death of six million Jews in Europe. Responding to Friday’s attack, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel would receive “a bitter fate for itself.”
Harvey Weinstein
It was, again, far from a Hollywood ending. After a retrial in Manhattan, American film producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted by a jury on Wednesday of committing a criminal sexual act when he assaulted a former production assistant, Miriam Haley, in 2006.
For this, the 73-year-old Weinstein faces 25 years in prison. But he was acquitted of the same charge in relation to his alleged assault of aspiring actress Kaja Sokola in 2002. The jury did not issue a verdict on a third case, which stemmed from his alleged rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. The mixed verdict came a year after the New York state’s Supreme Court overturned Weinstein’s conviction in 2020 for raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley.
The plot thickens: On Thursday, Justice Curtis Farber of the state Supreme Court declared a mistrial on Mann’s case after the jury foreperson refused to deliberate for a sixth day after days of reported dissension among jurors. Prosecutors plan to try the former Hollywood mogul a third time. He is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for rape in California.
