IMPEACHMENT is among the most severe powers entrusted to the House of Representatives. It is not an extension of partisan warfare, nor a substitute for failed political persuasion. It is a constitutional instrument meant to address grave abuses of public trust through a process that, while undeniably political, remains constrained by law, evidence and institutional restraint. When used carelessly, impeachment does not merely fail. It corrodes the very credibility of constitutional accountability.
Recent events have brought this danger into sharp relief. Two impeachment efforts, one against Vice President Sara Duterte, the other against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., now sit uncomfortably beside each other in our political landscape. They are not symmetrical in strength, posture or consequence. Yet together, they expose how impeachment in the Philippines is increasingly shaped not by constitutional discipline, but by selective outrage, procedural gamesmanship and strategic overreach.
The impeachment of Vice President Duterte was unprecedented in form and gravity. It was not a symbolic filing or a citizen’s protest. It was a House-initiated impeachment, consolidated, endorsed by more than one-third of members and transmitted to the Senate. The allegations were serious: misuse of confidential funds, abuse of authority, threats against top officials, and conduct framed as betrayal of public trust and other high crimes. Whether one agreed with the charges or not, the case had crossed the constitutional threshold for trial.
Yet the impeachment never reached judgment. The Supreme Court terminated the process on procedural grounds, invoking the one-year bar under Article XI. Crucially, the court did not rule on the merits. It did not acquit the vice president. Substantively, the allegations remain unresolved.
What is often missed in public discussion is that this deferral is temporary. There are now clear indications within political and legal circles that the impeachment complaint against the vice president will be refiled once the one-year bar lapses. When that happens, the unresolved issues related to confidential fund accountability, abuse of discretion and the broader question of fitness for office will return to the center of institutional scrutiny. In that sense, the Supreme Court ruling postponed accountability but did not extinguish it. The Duterte impeachment, therefore, is not a closed chapter.
Against this backdrop comes the verified impeachment complaint against President Marcos, filed by a private citizen and endorsed by a minority legislator. On paper, it satisfies the formal requirements of Article XI: It is verified, endorsed and properly referred. Substantively, however, it illustrates how impeachment can collapse under the weight of its own excesses.
Several of its most dramatic allegations fail under even modest legal scrutiny. The claim that the president “ordered and enabled the kidnapping and surrender” of former president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a case in point. “Kidnapping” is a term of criminal law with defined elements. To use it meaningfully requires proof of unlawful deprivation of liberty, a clear chain of command and an identifiable executive act. None of these is established in the complaint.
More troubling is the legal naïveté embedded in the accusation. Questions surrounding ICC jurisdiction, state cooperation, executive discretion in foreign affairs, and the effect of treaty withdrawal are complex and contested matters of constitutional and international law. One may strongly oppose any form of cooperation with the ICC. But disagreement, however principled, does not automatically translate into an impeachable offense.
Even more indefensible is the allegation that the president is a drug addict whose condition impairs his judgment and leadership. Impeachment for incapacity, assuming such a theory is even viable, cannot rest on rumor, insinuation or recycled political gossip. It requires competent evidence embodied in medical findings, sworn testimony or documented conduct demonstrating incapacity. None is offered. This allegation does not strengthen the complaint. It sabotages it.
Ironically, the complaint’s strongest potential argument is also its least developed: the claim that the president failed to veto unconstitutional provisions in the General Appropriations Acts, particularly those involving unprogrammed appropriations. Here, the complaint touches firm constitutional ground. The president does have a duty to veto provisions that are clearly unconstitutional. A willful failure to do so may, in theory, constitute a culpable violation of the Constitution.
But impeachment does not reward suggestions. It demands specificity. Which provisions were unconstitutional? Under what Supreme Court doctrines? Were the defects patent or reasonably debatable? Was the failure to veto a knowing constitutional evasion or a policy judgment within executive discretion? The complaint answers none of these questions. What could have been a serious constitutional case is reduced to a generalized indictment of budgetary choices.
The same defect afflicts allegations of kickbacks, budget insertions and ghost flood control projects. If substantiated, such acts would unquestionably be impeachable. But impeachment is not sustained by insinuation. The complaint identifies no specific projects, no intermediaries, no Commission on Audit findings, no transactional trail linking the alleged corruption to the president. It offers gravity without architecture.
What emerges then are potentially serious claims buried beneath sensational but legally indefensible accusations. Weak allegations provide convenient justification for dismissal and allow respondents to claim vindication without meaningful scrutiny. Impeachment fails not because it is bold, but because it is careless.
This is where the comparison with Sara Duterte’s impeachment becomes instructive. The vice president’s case failed procedurally, not substantively. The president’s case, as currently framed, risks failing substantively before it even reaches procedure. Together, they reveal a deeper pathology: a political culture that treats impeachment not as a disciplined constitutional process, but as a tactical instrument deployed, diluted or deferred depending on convenience.
The danger is not that impeachment is attempted. The Constitution clearly contemplates its use. The danger is that it is attempted so poorly, or so selectively, that it transforms a solemn constitutional mechanism into spectacle and accountability into farce.
Impeachment should unsettle power, not trivialize it. It should discipline authority, not indulge impulse. When it becomes an exercise in overreach or self-sabotage, it ceases to be a safeguard of democracy and becomes an argument against itself.
Antonio P. Contreras, PhD, is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of the state-fun PTV Network Inc. The views expressed here are his own.