Rest impeach

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad, so it’s said. I propose an amendment, Madame Chair: they first make them stupid.

The Committee on Justice could easily have killed any impeachment complaint against President Marcos Jr. at their level. After all, the coalition in power controls that committee and the entire House of Representatives. 

Any nay vote by the Committee on Justice — unlike our impeachment complaint in 2017 against then Commission on Elections Chair Andres Bautista Jr. — is not likely to be overturned by the plenary.

But no. The House had to be brazen about it. After letting a lame and much-derided first impeachment complaint against Marcos Jr. pass without a hitch two weeks ago, two others were rejected outright by the Office of the Secretary-General. The reason: the Secretary-General was out of the country.

The Constitution, and the House Rules themselves, say in no uncertain terms that impeachment complaints are received by the office of the Secretary-General, not the Secretary-General himself or herself.

But the Lower House is not one to let a petty thing like the Fundamental Law and its own rules of procedure get in the way of the House getting its way and blocking impeachment complaints that its leadership deems substantial. 

Thus, it so happened that one fine Thursday, 22 January 2026, a group composed of Makabayan bloc representatives, and another group led by us — former Representatives Mike Defensor and Jing Paras, lawyers Manny Luna and retired General Virgilio Garcia, the beauteous Cathy Binag, former Governor Chavit Singson, and yours truly — all marched into the Office of the House Secretary-General to file our respective complaints, only to be told to come back another day because, as stated above, the Secretary-General was receiving an award in Taiwan.

What the administration managed to achieve is to further bolster the belief that the first complaint, designed to fail (as many lawmakers have publicly stated), was merely to inoculate the President from another one for one year. 

The rejection of the subsequent ones, caught on video, took place inside the very premises of the Secretary-General’s office, proving to all and sundry that the present officeholder, Atty. Cheloy Garafil, did not take that office with her to Taipei. 

It was there in the Batasan compound all along, complete with tables, chairs, equipment, and dour-looking factotums. Also there was her executive director, who admitted to being second in command, although all he did was execute the dubious direction of his political bosses to ignore all impeachment complaints filed in the absence of his immediate superior.

When one files a case in court, does the presiding judge have to be there? Civil service rules mandate that an officer-in-charge be designated in case the head of office is indisposed. But the House appears to be operating under guidelines promulgated in another universe.

In so doing, the administration has once again shown that its greatest talent is creating self-inflicted wounds, as the present widespread backlash against such preposterous action demonstrates. 

In aiming to kill substantial and substantiated impeachment petitions against the President at the first opportunity, the present government may instead end up killing itself. In which case, considering the state the nation is in right now, it may not be too much of a loss. Truly a case of “rest impeach.”