Gagging the truth
Escudero has reminded the Vice President that she is covered. Good. Now we wait to see what enforcement actually looks like.
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Escudero has reminded the Vice President that she is covered. Good. Now we wait to see what enforcement actually looks like.
Last Wednesday, impeachment court Presiding Officer Chiz Escudero announced the strict enforcement of Rule 18 of the Senate Rules on Impeachment, effectively imposing a sub judice rule on everyone directly participating in Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial.
Senator-judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses, and even the Vice President herself are now expected to refrain from publicly commenting on the merits of the case. Repeat violations may result in fines or disciplinary action.
On its face, this sounds reasonable enough. Keep the trial inside the courtroom. Prevent outside pressure. Let the evidence speak for itself. But an impeachment is not the same as an ordinary trial before regular courts. And that distinction matters.
The traditional sub judice rule makes perfect sense in regular courts. Judges are expected to decide cases with cold neutrality. They are insulated, as much as possible, from popular pressure because they must base their decisions solely on the law and the evidence before them.
The public may criticize their decisions, but it cannot reverse them at the ballot box. Formal accountability comes through review by other judges in higher courts.
An impeachment trial is deliberately different by design.
It is both quasi-judicial and quasi-political. Senator-judges may wear robes during the proceedings, but they remain elected politicians accountable to voters. There is no Supreme Court of Impeachment that will review whether Senator X weighed the evidence properly. Ultimately, the accountability mechanism for each senator is the public itself.
Trying to take that public out of the process therefore seems rather odd. Public accountability is baked into an impeachment by design.
And then, there is also the world we actually live in.
This is our first impeachment trial in an era when most Filipinos get their news through Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, influencers, memes, and short clips selected by algorithms. We already know how easily context can disappear. We recently saw a spliced video posted on Senator Pia Cayetano’s Facebook page that made prosecutor Chel Diokno appear to say virtually the opposite of what he actually said.
Now imagine deliberately limiting the people who actually know what happened inside the courtroom from explaining it outside.
The information vacuum will not remain empty. Trolls will fill it. Paid influencers will fill it. Anonymous Facebook pages, AI-generated content, bots, propagandists, and every other creature swimming happily in our digital swamp will fill it. Is this really healthier for the trial?
Interestingly, Escudero himself pointed out during the Corona impeachment in 2012 that Rule 18 says participants should “refrain” from commenting. It does not use the stronger word “prohibit.” Fourteen years later, he is giving that same provision considerably sharper teeth.
And then there is the matter of equal enforcement.
Sara Duterte has repeatedly publicly attacked the legitimacy and evidentiary basis of the proceedings. Pia Cayetano, a senator-judge, posted that misleading Diokno video. If Rule 18 is now going to be strictly enforced, will conduct like this draw the same swift response?
Escudero has reminded the Vice President that she is covered. Good. Now we wait to see what enforcement actually looks like.
Keeping an impeachment trial fair is important. But so is keeping the public informed. In an age drowning in disinformation, silencing the people closest to the truth may not protect the process.
It may simply surrender the conversation to those least interested in true accountability.
