Koko seeks Senate caucus to ‘clarify’ Chiz scenario
Opposition senators on Saturday pressed their colleagues to set aside all “diversionary issues” and start the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, with Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III calling for an all-member caucus after the chamber came under fire for dragging its feet on the case filed four months earlier.
“I’m worried about what’s happening because there seems to be no commitment (from the Senate leadership) that the convening of the impeachment court, not just the reading of the articles of impeachment, would take place on Wednesday,” Pimentel told radio dwIZ’s “Usapang Senado” program.
He agreed with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano that the chamber had found itself “on trial” after Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero arbitrarily decided to move the start of the impeachment process from June 2 to June 11, the last session day of the 19th Congress. The term of the current Congress officially ends at noon on June 30.
Pimentel said that with the remaining time left, the Senate should “clarify everything.”
He said there should be no more “elusive replies” from Escudero on what would happen next after the prosecution team of the House of Representatives had presented the articles of impeachment before the Senate plenary.
Reputation at stake
Pimentel earlier acknowledged that Duterte’s formal trial would not happen during the 19th Congress as evidence against her would be presented in the the 20th Congress.
“The credibility, reputation and integrity of the Senate are at stake, especially if there would be surprises because nothing of that sort should happen,” the outgoing senator said.
“Everybody must act with good faith. We should preserve the integrity of our institution,” he said. “I hope the (senators will) commit to a schedule and stop all diversionary issues, such as those saying that we will not conduct an impeachment trial. It will just violate the Constitution.”
The Vice President is accused of culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust for, among others, her alleged misuse of more than P612 million in confidential funds and for her alleged threat to assassinate President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez.
What’s the plan?
Pimentel, who was one of the senator-judges who voted to convict impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012, said he could not help but wonder if there were “plans” to scuttle Duterte’s trial after a draft resolution seeking to dismiss the Vice President’s impeachment case without a Senate trial came out on Wednesday.
“That’s why there should be an all-senator caucus because this impeachment case is a very important matter,” he said, addressing his call on Escudero.
After initially feigning ignorance about it, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa admitted that the undated and unnumbered proposed resolution came from his office.
The senator, an ardent supporter of Duterte, said that it was based on the manifestation made by Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino during their plenary session on June 2.
Only for labor cases
Tolentino, who failed in his reelection bid after abandoning the Dutertes to join President Marcos’ senatorial slate in the midterm elections, claimed that the Vice President’s impeachment case should be “functionally dismissed” if the Senate failed to decide on it before the term of the 19th Congress ends on June 30.
Pimentel, who topped the 1990 bar examinations, countered Tolentino’s argument, saying the principle of “functional dismissal” was only applicable in labor cases.
“That concept has no application in constitutional law, such as the impeachment process,” he said.
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon on Saturday warned his erstwhile colleagues who “seek to hide the truth.”
“The (draft) resolution is clearly unconstitutional. Do not play with fire. You might get burned,” Drilon said in a Viber message.
Courting a crisis
Pimentel’s fellow opposition senator, Risa Hontiveros, said the Senate was already courting a “constitutional crisis” by dilly-dallying instead of complying with their constitutional mandate to conduct the impeachment trial at once.
As argued by several legal experts and other lawmakers, Hontiveros said that she and her colleagues had “no discretion” to abandon their obligation to serve as senator-judges in the trial of impeachable government officials.
“If they insist on aborting the impeachment trial through a vote, it would be a grotesque subversion of our authority regarding the impeachment process,” she said in a separate radio interview.
Such action, she added, would be a “wholesale betrayal not just of our constitutional mandate, but of the trust that the people had given us.”
Both Hontiveros and Pimentel disputed Escudero’s claim that the reading of the impeachment articles and the convening of the Senate impeachment court would hamper the passage of several priority measures during their last three session days next week.
Done in under an hour
“The start of this trial, which would take less than an hour, has been delayed for four months already,” she noted.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, a member of the Senate majority, also believed that there was no need for senators to vote on whether to proceed with the impeachment trial “because it is our constitutional duty.”
“It is stated in the Constitution that once we receive the articles of impeachment, the Senate is duty-bound to hear and finish the process until we render a judgment,” Gatchalian said.
Despite filing a petition in the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the impeachment case against her, Duterte said last month that she was eager to face trial because she wanted a “bloodbath.”
She said last week that she agreed with 88 percent of Filipinos who said in a recent poll that they wanted her tried by the Senate.
