Losing the audience

Losing the audience | Daily Tribune

Those are alarming numbers for one of the most important constitutional proceedings our country can undertake. They also appear to confirm what many people have already been saying for weeks: the trial is slow, confusing, and, quite frankly, boring.

The same survey found that 32.2 percent described the proceedings as confusing, while another 7.8 percent said they were too technical and difficult to follow. Only 7.2 percent found the trial clear and easy to understand.

These numbers should be a wake-up call.

An impeachment trial is undoubtedly quasi-judicial. Evidence must be presented. Witnesses must be questioned. The accused must be given every fair opportunity to respond. No one should be convicted or acquitted through slogans, social media pressure, or mob sentiment.

But an impeachment is also unavoidably political, not in the cheap or partisan sense, but because it asks whether a high public official remains fit to hold the people’s trust.

The Senate casts the formal votes, but the Filipino people are the ultimate audience. They must be able to understand the evidence, assess the arguments and follow how the senator-judges reach their decision. If they cannot, the legitimacy of the entire process begins to suffer.

The survey reflects that danger. Only 49.3 percent said they trusted the Senate impeachment court to be fair and impartial, while 42.3 percent expressed distrust. That is almost an even split.

Perhaps some of that distrust comes from partisanship. But some may also come from a simpler problem: people are less likely to trust a process they cannot understand.

This trial also faces a challenge that the Estrada and Corona proceedings did not encounter in quite the same way. Social media is now the country’s dominant source of news. Most Filipinos will experience the trial not through a full testimony or complete transcripts, but through short clips, captions, memes and partisan summaries.

We have already seen how dangerous that can be. A carefully edited video can make a prosecutor appear to say the exact opposite of what he actually said. Falsehood can travel around Facebook multiple times before the truth has even finished making its formal offer of evidence.

The impeachment court and both parties therefore have to do more than conduct a technically valid trial. They must make it publicly intelligible. That means clearer rulings, less needless repetition, simpler explanations, and a pace that does not punish viewers for trying to pay attention.

Because a constitutional trial conducted beyond the public understanding may still produce a verdict. What it may fail to produce is public acceptance. And in that instance, whatever the outcome, the failure would leave us more divided than when the trial began.