Statecraft: Who’s doing the con?

The tragedy of our collective existence is the historical paradox that Vice President Sara Duterte has been impeached twice by the House of Representatives, a first in a short list of impeachment cases.

First impeached in July of last year, the Supreme Court later declared the articles of impeachment unconstitutional as they violated the one-year and due process rules.

The second impeachment came on 11 May this year when 257 of the 318 House members voted to approve the new articles of impeachment in a manner akin to “hitting two birds with one stone” — implicating Sara in her twin capacities as vice president and as Education secretary.

With no further legal obstacle, the House formally transmitted the articles to the Senate on 14 May. Thereupon, the articles of impeachment were fully deliberated upon absent four “dismembered senators.”

Recall that FM Jr. got his presidential victory on a twosome, or what his sister Sen. Imee Marcos rightfully described as a “marriage in heaven” — the political tandem called the UniTeam that elected Sara as vice president with 32.2 million votes over FM Jr.’s 31.6 million.

The partnership should have sailed on an even keel except the journey ended up turbulent.

If push comes to shove, Sara might not be allowed to finish her term until the next election cycle. Even worse is the sad prospect of her removal from office and perpetual disqualification when the impeachment court lays down its final verdict, especially with orders from above.

Otherwise deduced, the political fallout may have something to do with certain concessions not met, promises broken, and at least one party failing in its commitments. Sara’s more impactful overtures were about the national budget being controlled by only two individuals — one wanted for graft in a “P290-million flood control project” and seeking asylum in France and the other charged with plunder allegedly involving a “P7.4 billion” kickback scheme.

Interestingly, there’s a kind of Darwinism which thinks the presidency can be inherited as though that immense power could be passed down from parent to offspring.

Pnoy, for one, was the son of the first woman president, Cory. For another, FM Jr. is the son of strongman President FM Sr. Presently, there’s no other forerunner for the presidency than Sara, herself the daughter of the banished President Du30.

Following Karl Mannheim’s 1928 essay, “The Problem of Generations,” something ought to have been formed via shared “historical experiences” that “shape worldviews, behaviors and collective identity.” At the level of optics and massive propaganda, rabid adherents of the current dispensation may be winning the battle but losing the war.

For the public, how the government screwed up the national budget with its cohorts who siphoned off public funds is beyond forgetting. Congress shamelessly turned into a kleptocracy or a “rule of thieves” that likely stole, looted, embezzled the budget under cover of flood control projects and broad-spectrum dole-outs.

Its luminous order of business has been to convict Sara with the same pack of senator-judges that voted to lower the conviction threshold. The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has unceremoniously closed shop and literally faded into oblivion. Even the Independent Commission for Infrastructure was a mere bubble, an empty promise, a senseless illusion.

The uncharacteristic withdrawal of Articles I, III and IV, leaving only Article II, officially concludes the prosecution phase and, thereupon, after the intervening recess, it’s the defense’s turn to present their case.

This whole charade, zarzuela, or circus has countless plots and subplots, scenes and schemes, boundless testimonies and faceless witnesses and, in the end, it will be as if anything and everything had never happened.

What a nightmare it all is on that boulevard of broken dreams where it seems there’s no one in charge of the government.