‘Over-judicializing’ seen clear danger

The Senate court must avoid turning Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial into an overly technical courtroom proceeding since dragging out the process could cause the public to lose interest in one of the country’s most consequential constitutional cases, political analyst, law professor, and DAILY TRIBUNE columnist Atty. Barry Gutierrez held.

Speaking during yesterday’s Tribune News on Cue Special Coverage: The Impeachment Rundown, Gutierrez admitted that the first three days of the proceedings lacked the substance many Filipinos had been waiting to hear.

“To be honest, and no offense to anyone, but it’s kind of boring,” Atty. Gutierrez said. “We’ve waited for this for a long time. The impeachment trial was delayed for a year, but after the first three days, I haven’t seen anything surprising or unexpected.”

He said the proceedings have been dominated by legal technicalities and procedural objections instead of presenting the facts behind the impeachment articles.

Filipinos should understand process

Gutierrez argued that impeachment is a political and constitutional process that should be understandable to ordinary Filipinos rather than treated like a conventional court trial.

“We have this tendency to run it as if it were a court proceeding,” he said. “Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that impeachment has to be a courtroom-style trial.”

He also observed that lawyer-senators have tended to dominate the proceedings, resulting in discussions that are often too technical for ordinary viewers to follow.

“We have 21 senator-judges, but only four of them are lawyers,” he said. “If the lawyers are always the ones speaking and dominating the discussion, I don’t think that helps.”

He also noted that while the Senate’s impeachment rules allow the Rules of Court to be applied, they do so only in a supplementary manner, giving senators discretion in conducting the trial rather than requiring strict adherence to courtroom procedures.

He warned that the proceedings should be streamlined to keep the public engaged, stressing that the impeachment trial is too important for Filipinos to tune out.

“We cannot allow people to lose interest because what is being discussed here is important,” Gutierrez said. “We have to maintain the public’s attention, and we can only do that if the process itself is presented in a way that is engaging and understandable so Filipinos are not overwhelmed by following such an important proceeding.”

Gutierrez also addressed one of the key issues in the impeachment complaint: the allegation that Duterte committed grave threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

He clarified that under the Revised Penal Code, prosecutors do not need to prove that Duterte hired an assassin or took further steps to carry out the alleged threat.

“The accusation is the threat itself,” Gutierrez explained.

“The actual issuance of the threat, even without any further showing that you acted on it, is already a crime under the Revised Penal Code.”

Gutierrez said some observers have mistakenly conflated the crime of grave threats with offenses that require proof of an actual assassination plot or conspiracy.

“If we’re talking only about grave threats, there’s no need to prove that the person did anything beyond making the threatening statement,” he said.