VP Sara’s trial — self-maximizers, anyone?
This formula, playbook if you will, was the launchpad for as many House member-prosecutors to hit the big time via free quad-media exposure.
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This formula, playbook if you will, was the launchpad for as many House member-prosecutors to hit the big time via free quad-media exposure.
The post-scenario of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial may swing the door open for House member-prosecutors, capitalizing on their newfound fame, to throw their hats into the Senate race come 2028.
Some time back, the now-notable political figures who pushed for the impeachment of then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo included Alan Peter Cayetano, Joel Villanueva and Sonny Angara.
Now, of the 11 House panel members, like Chel Diokno, Leila de Lima, Gerville Luistro, Lorenz Defensor, Terry Ridon and Joel Chua, by boon or bane, might displace old Senate names come the next senatorial derby. Conversely, there can be a serious backlash depending on their perceived involvement in the unprecedented floodgate corruption scheme.
It begs stating that prominent representatives like Alan Peter Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Sergio Osmeña III and Joker Arroyo, all lead House prosecutors who staged the walkout in the 2001 impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada that led to the EDSA 2 uprising, transitioned to become senators shortly thereafter.
Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial could reshape the 2028 Senate race, giving House prosecutors and private counsels greater political visibility while raising questions about power, corruption and democracy.
Then-House Speaker Manny Villar Jr., who fast-tracked the transmission of the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, reaped his reward as a senator; Jinggoy Estrada, then a mayor, also won a Senate seat; and his withdrawal of support from President Estrada by then-PNP Chief Ping Lacson likewise catapulted him to the Senate.
This formula, playbook if you will, was the launchpad for as many House member-prosecutors to hit the big time via free quad-media exposure. Thus, such trials have become a breeding ground for new actors likely to address corruption or otherwise perpetuate it once they realize how easy-peasy it is to become a senator through the back door.
Private counsels for the prosecution and the defense operating under the supervision of their congressional and Senate principals, even corporate patrons, may likewise find that grabbing a House or Senate seat will be as effortless as betting dollars to doughnuts. Depending on someone’s civic awareness, these yuppies, in the persons of the private counsels, are perceived to be preferential candidates for any public office, elective or appointive.
Literally, it’s the best of both worlds, be they on the side of the prosecution or the defense. Thus, it’s expected of everyone to attain fairly high grades in their scorecards until this whole “exercise in demagoguery” drowning the quad-media landscape comes to an end.
Politics presents itself as a career lottery for fortune-seekers or rabid self-maximizers who know the drill.
Meanwhile, there’s a Sword of Damocles hovering over the heads of the senator-judges haunted by their alleged prior crimes or felonies. In the administration’s manifest resolve to drain the swamp, the Ombudsman took the offensive to cause the arrest and detention of disloyal and corrupt high politicians. Remember the film “Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy” and its plot of vengeance?
It’s easy to trivialize our revered concept of democracy, given that in the US Constitution itself, the word “democracy” does not make a single appearance in its text, except for a mere reference to “inequality.”
Parenthetically, our political milieu lends itself to a pervasive inequality in the civil service, public office or recruitment driven by reason of consanguinity to the appointing authority.
As the main plot of Sara’s indictment thickens, there could be any number of intervening subplots in this disturbing socio-legal experiment.
For instance, PGMA’s impeachment never reached a Senate trial against the backdrop of, viz., the House dismissal of Hello Garci for “insufficiency of substance” and the alleged NBN-ZTE corruption.
Whereas in Erap’s case, the triggers included the jueteng exposé, the Jose Velarde account, the controversial “second envelope” and the withdrawal of support by the military and police.
In Sara’s impeachment trial, there are triggers, too. There’s that unsettling definition of the two-thirds vote, the looming possibility of a walkout by the contending blocs, social movements radically operating beyond constitutional bounds, and the depopulation of the Senate membership through authoritarian, if not despotic, means.
Are the powers-that-be playing fast and loose or precisely subverting from within to remain in power? Or is Sara’s fate a done deal?
