‘Remand’ rigamarole

By the looks of it, the Impeachment Tribunal on Wednesday tried to buy time to get out of a politically difficult situation by sowing confusion all around with its so-called “remand” ploy. 

But House prosecutors denied the Impeachment Court a breather the next day, seeking instead clarification on the true import of the court’s two orders before they would comply. 

The House prosecutors stressed they had strictly followed the constitutional requirements on impeachment and did not violate the one-year prohibition rule, an assurance of which the Court had sought in one of its orders. 

But as the prosecutors sought clarifications, the House itself adopted a resolution certifying that the impeachment proceedings of last 5 February fully complied with the Constitution.

 The House prosecutors in effect tossed the ball back to the trial court, preventing further dribbling of the complaint. 

At any rate, these fast-paced developments were but the more striking political theater in the wake of the confusing twists and turns the impeachment court took last Wednesday. 

These pointless meanderings were perfectly captured by retired Law Dean Mel Sta. Maria when he thundered, “What a crazy day!”

Nonetheless, the cleverly engineered “madness” can be said to have bombed in the end, leading many to soberly conclude that what occurred was in fact no more than staged political theatrics, having no consequence to the impeachment trial, managing only to anger many sectors, quipped retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. 

Such a valid assessment was bolstered no less than by Senate President Chiz Escudero himself when he strongly qualified that the so-called “remand” was a “procedural pause” of the trial and that the Senate Tribunal did not surrender jurisdiction or dismiss the case.

The “return to sender” decision, in fact, did not prevent Escudero from serving a 10-day non-extendable summons on the Veep to answer the impeachment charges against her. 

Consequently, this meant the eimpeachment case was still very much active and alive, Constitution framer Adolf Azcuna said in a TV interview.

The House prosecutors agreed with Azcuna and expressed confidence the trial was progressing towards its logical conclusion of either acquitting or convicting the Veep.  

So, what the senators of the 19th Congress importantly did, Azcuna later wrote, was “to acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment case and it is still on course to proceed to trial without undue delay after the cross over” to the 20th Congress. 

Meanwhile, what are we then to make of the pro-Duterte senator-judges immediately declaring a win? Honestly speaking, they lost this round. 

This, on the perception they had more chances of blocking the trial’s unstoppable momentum by having it dismissed outright during the Senate’s plenary session rather than foolishly doing it at the impeachment court, observed Azcuna. 

These undeniably biassed senator-judges, in short, lost whatever advantage they may have had after first agreeing to the convening of the impeachment court and then allowing themselves to be duped into agreeing that the Impeachment Court was the correct venue for tackling Senator Bato de la Rosa’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

On a side note, many found it hilarious that a senator-judge filed a dismissal motion in his own court where he himself was one of those who would decide on it. 

Escudero, however, dismissed the ribbing, saying that nothing in the Senate rules prevented senator-judges from filing whatever motions they wanted to make, even if these were patently absurd. 

Anyway, whatever happens with all these developments as the trial moves forward only reinforces the prognosis that we need to brace ourselves for we are now smack inside a political and legal whirlwind, requiring even more honest and patient discernment.