Many scoffed when the House of Representatives’ supermajority, at the last minute before its campaign recess, rammed the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte through the plenary. Moving against the clock, I can almost imagine the House leadership shouting “horita, horita” (right now, in the manner of Colombian drug lords) as they rushed to the Senate to transmit the articles, only for deputy majority leader Joel Villanueva to shut them down by adjourning his chamber without the Senate taking up the impeachment.

Duterte supporters heaved a sigh of relief. Sara was safe, at least until 2 June, when the present Congress reconvenes for the last time. Even then, the DDS (Duterte Diehard Supporters) argue, it is most likely that the Senate will not have time to constitute itself into an impeachment court and try the veep. And it is highly legally debatable whether the impeachment may carry over into the next Congress. The opposition even derisively claimed that, in precipitately going through with the impeachment instead of waiting after the next batch of legislators have assumed office, the administration shot itself in the foot.

Or did it? Looking at the events from the chill and distant heights, so to speak, railroading the impeachment through the House may have been a master stroke on the part of Speaker Romualdez and his ilk.

For one, the sudden filing of impeachment raps papered over the issue of alleged unauthorized insertions worth almost P500 billion in the 2025 budget. That brouhaha had the administration on the ropes for quite some time, with public opinion squarely against it, and a Supreme Court case putting Marcos and his allies on the defensive.

The impeachment was a clever counter-offensive that shifted the narrative almost entirely to the issue of Sara’s continuation in office and — much more importantly — her ability to run for president in 2028, owing to a possible perpetual disqualification.

Secondly, it was also a show of force, a demonstration that Romualdez is the real power in the present dispensation. By going through with the impeachment notwithstanding the President’s publicly declared position against it, Romualdez exhibited to all that, with his near-monolithic control of the House, he calls the shots and will not be dictated to by his cousin, the Chief Executive. Wheedling the wide-eyed (literally and figuratively) Sandro Marcos to lead the charge was also a great touch; it deftly if subtly conveyed the message that Marcos cannot even control his own son, who would rather follow the implorations of Tito Martin.

Thirdly, it was an audacious “up yours” to the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), which recently came out in force ostensibly in support of the President’s anti-impeachment stance, but obliquely in solid support of the Vice President. The message to the INC could not have been more clearly delivered: “Your vaunted bloc voting doesn’t faze me or my allies. If you can muster two million votes, the hundreds of billions put at our disposal by the new budget can deliver five times as many votes as yours. Your days of political influence are over.”

Lastly, it was a test of the solidity of the pro-Duterte forces. By squarely targeting the opposition’s most valuable player in 2028 via impeachment, which forecloses recourse to the usual channels (court cases, public opinion and major voting blocs) to protect Sara, the administration is daring the DDS to utilize the only avenue left to it, and that is People Power.

The administration is gambling that the opposition — scattered, short of funds and out of power — will not be able to pull it off.

If there is no sustained, organized and widespread groundswell in favor of Sara, and even if the administration runs out of time now, then it still has three years to pull it off, next time with greater impunity, if it believes that most in the opposition are too chicken-hearted to take to the streets to counter it.

If that be the case, then those against the Marcos regime may well rest in peace right now.