On the 18 ‘remanding’ senators
Philippine political dynamics have never seen the travesty that members of an august body like the Senate showed last June 10, 2025. After receiving the articles of impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte from the House of Representatives (HOR) several months ago, the Senate—mandated to convene as an impeachment court—refused to act on them, “forthwith,” as required in the constitutional provision.
On that fateful day, after having donned their respective robes as judges of an impeachment court, 18 senators chose to remand (return) the articles of impeachment to the HOR. Five senators voted against the return of the documents, believing that the Senate should proceed with the impeachment trial of VP Duterte, immediately, as mandated by the Constitution. Instead of acting as judges, 18 senators behaved like they were defense counsels for the accused VP. They were defending the impeachable VP even without reading through the body of evidence in the articles of impeachment first.
It is the first time such a thing happened. And the 18 senators are now being cited by legal and constitutional experts for committing a serious transgression of the Constitution. These are the senators who have—in many ways—displayed their unabashed subservience to the Duterte political family, believing that such behavior can be leverage for their political continuity. Foremost among them is the head of the pack of Duterte wolves, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa has so far behaved like a character in a tragicomedy of sorts. He vacillates between acting like a tough guy in several national television interviews, spewing invectives that he is used to hearing from his idol, to being a comical pseudo-mendicant, begging for Senate protection against a possible arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Such a possibility is not far-fetched. Dela Rosa has served as the main implementer of the reported extrajudicial killings (EJKs) associated with former president Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity. Such an association is strong enough to bring him to The Hague and be reunited with his idol.
When asked why he is seeking Senate protection for his deep involvement in the EJKs, Dela Rosa uttered some cuss words before he asked the same question of his interviewer, Karmina Constantino, on the ANC news channel. Asking the interviewer is like comparing her to himself, a serious flaw in judgment, and his overall thinking process, if he ever went through that process while being interviewed.
The rest of Dela Rosa’s “remanding” cohorts have also shown how they have disregarded their constitutional mandate. I can understand if senators like Robinhood Padilla, Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Lito Lapid, Jinggoy Estrada—all popular actors in film and television series—would easily decide to take part in the motion to return the articles of impeachment to the HOR.
Perhaps they did not think seriously about their constitutional mandate; they were only focused on their political longevity. This also goes for the Cayetano siblings, the Villar mother-and-son tandem, as well as Jinggoy’s half-sibling, JV Ejercito. They have been known to be avid Duterte supporters for quite a while, having enjoyed the mantle of Duterte’s political clout to bring them to where they are now.
Both Escudero and Loren Legarda were huge disappointments, considering their relatively higher education levels and erstwhile brilliant academic records. However, their past political performances could be regarded as marked by transactional rent-seeking, always going in the same political directions as those believed to be wielding enormous political clout on a national scale. Such inconsistency with their sterling academic honors can only be explained by a desire for power while becoming national elected officials. Power indeed can be seductive; it is like a spring that flows endlessly to generate more avaricious desires.
As for the rest of the “notorious” 18, we can only say they have also toed the line of least resistance and followed the “popular” flow of asking the HOR some “clarificatory” questions on the impeachment. But have they seriously read and understood them?
For Rep. Gerville Luistro, “there is nothing to clarify” in the articles of impeachment since the HOR leadership made sure that the documents were in order before they passed them to the Senate. She added that this “remanding” of the articles of impeachment to where they came from is “weird.”
The 18 “remanding” senators will go down in history for displaying conduct unbecoming of judges in an impeachment court. They do not deserve to be elected again.
