April trial?

April trial? | Daily Tribune

Attentive observers of Philippine politics knew beforehand about the House’s last-minute historic impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Last month, in the aftermath of the Marcos forces co-opting the massive Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) rally from the clueless Duterte forces, I noted that “the President’s allies are privately weighing and debating their many options, including the option of the House filing for impeachment just before the campaign period starts then leaving the trial for the Senate after the polls.”

That has come to pass. A large majority in the House formally indicted the Veep just before the campaign period, leaving the Senate no choice but to convene itself into an impeachment court during its break.

However, it looks as if the Senate is delaying immediately upholding its constitutional duty and is facing heavy criticism for it.

But the important point here is that the senators are clearly buying time to hurdle the legal and political minefields before holding the trial, much like the House members did before impeaching the Veep.

The senators are buying time, for one, before turning themselves into a quasi-judicial body because impeachment has a dual-face nature: a fundamentally political face and a legal face.

Senator judges are political animals, of course. But they are also obligated to project legal objectivity during the trial since the law is never a mere ornament in impeachment proceedings.

Legal objectivity is required since the public must be thoroughly convinced that whatever verdict the Senate arrives at wouldn’t be partisan.

If the verdict isn’t seen as non-partisan, it invariably risks serious political blowbacks, particularly since impeachment isn’t only about holding high government officials to account but also about ensuring that the politics underlying it doesn’t careen into a major political crisis.

In the case of Veep’s impeachment, the proceedings are not only meant to remove her from office but also to disqualify her from running for the 2028 national elections.

Realistically speaking, however, partisanship won’t be avoidable once the trial begins.

In what forms partisanship will take is hard to foresee at this point. But partisanship will certainly involve sitting or incoming senators individually perceiving or assessing how the Veep’s impeachment will either increase or decrease their political stock or further their political ambitions beyond the Senate.

In the meantime, as the senators sort out where they stand and how they’ll navigate the impeachment trial, President Marcos Jr. himself is a crucial party to the Veep’s impeachment: the Chief Executive apparently has to call for a special Senate session before an impeachment court can be convened.

Moreover, the Chief Executive has to finally decide whether or not he can still politically afford the Marcos-Duterte war of attrition.

At any rate, when will the senators and the President find it comfortable to convene the impeachment court?

My best guess is the Senate will likely convene the court and start the impeachment trial by April.

There are already indications of this. Senate President Francis Escudero, for instance, said last week that “the impeachment case will likely be decided by the new Senate because the Senate is a continuing body.”

The operative phrase “continuing body” — which Escudero likens to the situation in courts where pending cases are taken up by new judges or justices — makes the case for the right before and immediately after the midterms trial of the Veep.

And it seems that there are no legal obstacles involved. “The Senate is a continuing body as half of them are still within their terms, so they can still function and discharge duties that the Senate alone can do, such as trying an impeached officer,” former Supreme Court spokesperson and legal expert Ted Te told a news website last week.