Missing the point

Missing the point | Daily Tribune

Saying the ball is now in the hands of the Speaker, 17 complainants from various civil society groups on Monday filed the first impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte at the Office of the Secretary General of the House of Representatives.

Akbayan Partylist Rep. Percival Cendaña endorsed the 50-page complaint brought to the house by the complainants who were accompanied by former Senator Leila de Lima.

The first nominee of Mamamayang Liberal Partylist and the group’s spokesperson, De Lima stated the basic motivation for the impeachment complaint against the Vice President: “Public office is not a throne of privilege, it is a position of trust, and Sara Duterte has desecrated that trust with her blatant abuses of power.”

For former presidential peace adviser Ging Deles, “the VP has reduced public office to a platform for violent rhetoric, personal enrichment, elitist entitlement and a shield for impunity; her actions desecrate our institutions and her continued grip on power insults every Filipino who stands for good governance and the rule of law.”

Earlier, House members took to the podium at the Batasan, delivering statements of outrage specifically with regard to the death threats made by the VP against President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., his wife First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez.

On 23 November, angered by the move of lawmakers to transfer her chief of staff from House detention to a jail for obstructing the HoR’s probe into the VP’s alleged misuse of public funds, Duterte took to Zoom, and spewing profanities, revealed that she had contracted an assassin to kill the President, his wife, and the Speaker if she herself were liquidated.

“This is an admission by the second highest official of the land of a premeditated intent to harm the highest leaders of our government; it’s a direct attack on the presidency, on this House, on the very foundation of our democracy. This is treachery of the highest order,” said House Deputy Speaker David C. Suarez of the 2nd District of Quezon.

Suarez continued, “How can someone sworn to uphold the Constitution and protect the people conspire to commit such an act of unthinkable violence? How can the Vice President who is expected to be a unifying figure admit to plotting an act that could destabilize the entire nation?”

His turn to speak, Bataan 2nd District Rep. Albert Garcia asked, “How can we as representatives of the Filipino people stand silent in the face of such a heinous admission? If someone in her position feels emboldened to admit to such acts, what message does this send to the public? That power can be wielded without accountability? That the rule of law can be disregarded with impunity?”

For all these impassioned statements of indignation, the honest truth is that there is little likelihood the impeachment of the VP would prosper because, for one thing, the campaign period for the May 2025 midterm election starts in February and there is simply no time for the President’s allies in Congress to go through the tedious exercise.

In that regard, President Marcos may actually have a valid, judicious point in urging his congressional allies not to waste their time impeaching the VP because she is “unimportant,” and it would not “benefit a single Filipino.”

Analysts say the President discouraging the impeachment of the VP dismisses the Dutertes’ political power drama in favor of his giving priority to the more important task of running the affairs of state.

Political pundits also point out that lawmakers allied with the administration should perhaps consider concentrating on a criminal prosecution rather than an impeachment.

An impeachment conviction only removes an unfit politician from office, and perpetually bars them from public office. But a criminal conviction can throw the official in jail.

Thus, wondered one pundit, perhaps aren’t those who perceive the President to be a softie for appealing to Congress to forgo impeaching Sara Duterte at this particular time missing the point?