IN a glaringly deceitful act and manifest travesty of justice and fairness, the prosecution withdrew Articles 1, 3 and 4 of the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte after it had completed its presentation of evidence in support of said Articles 1 and 4. This was done in the middle of the impeachment trial, and at a time when it was the turn of VP Sara to present rebuttal of the prosecution’s evidence of the VP’s alleged wrongdoing.
The withdrawal is an unmistakable and shameful swindling of the people and the vice president. It came after the prosecution repeatedly dared and needled VP Sara to answer the charges against her, only to deny her the opportunity to defend herself from the baseless accusations. Such duplicitous act is not only a mockery of the impeachment process but a brazen violation of the due process clause of the Constitution accorded all persons accused of committing crimes and wrongdoing.
By removing such articles from the impeachment complaint, thereby making them no longer subject to adjudication by the impeachment court, the defense has been unfairly deprived of presenting evidence against the evidence introduced by the prosecution on Articles 1 and 4, heard and watched not only by those following the trial in the comfort of their homes, guests, Senate personnel and participants inside the impeachment court, but by the whole world, as it was covered by livestreaming.
The defense is now limited to presenting evidence only on Article 2 of the impeachment complaint. But more importantly, it cannot lay out its evidence on Articles 1 and 4 before the same worldwide audience to refute the proof of charges the prosecution has submitted before the hearing body.
The swift and unequivocal approval by the presiding officer of the withdrawal of the articles of impeachment, without the benefit of the senator-judges seriously deliberating on such a sensitive and controversial subject, goes to the very heart of due process. It reveals a devious conspiracy between the prosecution and the approving authority, and most probably by a few senator-judges, who, unsurprisingly, have not raised a voice of dissent or at the very least questioned the prosecution’s motive in doing so, except for one senator in the majority and three senators in the minority who were shocked by the prosecution’s underhanded move and who expressed their reservations and opposition to it.
What is so unnerving and an insult to one’s intelligence is the feigned ignorance of the presiding officer who acted as if he didn’t know about the planned withdrawal. After the formal manifestation of the articles by the prosecution, the presiding officer immediately called for a recess, purportedly for the senator-judges to huddle on the unexpected development. It was noticeable, however, that most of the majority senators just went through the motions of a caucus. After a little more than 20 minutes, the proceedings resumed. The presiding officer announced that he would give an extended ruling on the matter. He immediately proceeded to read a long-winded ruling, complete with Supreme Court citations of decided cases, accepting the withdrawal, that took more than 30 minutes to finish!
It was evident, which even an intellectually challenged person could decipher, that the so-called extended ruling was prepared earlier given its length and substance, and the call for a recess was just a pretext.
Considering the sepulchral silence of most of the senators belonging to the majority group on such a substantial issue that could taint the integrity of the impeachment court, the suspicion that there was collusion between the prosecution and the presiding officer is a foregone conclusion. Which is in pursuance of the goal of ousting the vice president and throwing her out of the 2028 presidential race, as shrewdly engineered by the political operators and their principal.
To disallow the defense team of VP Sara from presenting countervailing evidence on the withdrawn Articles 1 and 4 is to allow the prosecution to get away with murder. It is contrary to all norms of ethics and fairness. It is a brazen constitutional transgression that cannot be countenanced in a democratic society. Those who subscribe to this outrageously unlawful proposition must be expunged from their judicial robes. They are undeserving to stay a minute longer in an impeachment court.
Not only has a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money been uselessly spent to destroy VP Sara’s reputation, but the time and energy of the senators that could have been spent on the deliberation and passing of the national budget and other urgent priority bills for the service of the people and development of the country has been wasted as well. So were the sleepless nights of the lawyers of the respondent vice president wasted, which could have been avoided with their unproductive spent time diverted to more worthy causes. The people who were glued to their tv screens and cellphones must be gnashing their teeth in utter disgust over this unwanted, obnoxious political theatrical drama.
The minority senators, particularly Senators Robin Padilla and Bong Go, who filed a certiorari petition in the Supreme Court asking it to declare unconstitutional the act of the impeachment court changing the voting threshold for conviction from 16 votes to 14, should, together with their other colleagues, move to overrule the ruling of the presiding chair approving prosecution’s withdrawal of the said impeachment articles, being in derogation of respondent VP Sara’s right to due process. They should also take a collective public stand to no longer participate in an unlawful process until the Supreme Court rules to declare the said impeachment court’s decision as constitutional.
This political theater of the absurd in the impeachment court must stop. It cannot go on unrestrained and unchecked. The rule of law must prevail. Let its majesty be a blinding light to those who transgress it with impunity.
