REP. Tobias Tiangco and Rep. Antonio Tinio are now talking about impeaching President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as a result of the Supreme Court decision on the national budgets, amplified further by Marcos critics. The ruling has supplied fresh political ammunition. Whether it supplies sufficient grounds for removing the president is a considerably harder question.
Tiangco has discussed what groups might pursue after the constitutional bar permits another impeachment effort. Tinio sees the ruling as strengthening the case against Marcos. These are political assessments worth examining. But anyone treating the decision as a ready verdict against the president is skipping the most demanding part of the argument: establishing his personal culpability.
The court struck down the 2024 and 2025 budget laws over congressional increases that exceeded the president’s total recommended appropriations and invalidated funding triggers in the 2026 budget. Those are serious findings. They establish constitutional defects in the budget framework. They do not, without further evidence, establish the president’s personal culpability under an impeachment ground.
Article XI identifies culpable violation of the Constitution as an impeachable offense. The adjective is essential. During the Constitutional Commission deliberations, the accepted understanding required a willful and intentional violation, excluding acts committed in good faith or through an honest mistake of judgment. Erase that distinction, and constitutional accountability becomes a punishment for every interpretation subsequently rejected by the court.
This does not mean the president can sign anything that Congress sends him and then plead innocence. He has an independent duty to preserve and defend the Constitution. His power to veto appropriation items gives him an important means of discharging that duty. Congressional authorship cannot erase executive responsibility for knowingly approving a constitutional violation.
But responsibility must be demonstrated through evidence. What did Marcos know when he signed? How clear was the constitutional prohibition under the law and precedents then available? What advice did his legal and budget officials provide? Did he knowingly participate in an arrangement designed to evade constitutional restrictions? These questions require records and testimony, rather than triumphant declarations.
Such proof need not include a confession or evidence that Marcos personally pocketed public money. Intent and bad faith may be inferred from established circumstances. Persistent disregard of settled limits, concealment or participation in deliberate evasion could become relevant. But those circumstances must be established, and the inference must concern his conduct, rather than his critics’ opinion of him.
Critics will point to warnings raised before the budgets became law. Those warnings matter. Their contents, specificity and reception deserve scrutiny. Yet a warning establishes that an objection was made. It does not, by itself, prove that the president recognized the objection as legally correct and deliberately chose to violate the Constitution, anyway.
Equally, invoking legal advice cannot function as a magic certificate of good faith. Advice manufactured to excuse an obvious violation deserves little protection. The inquiry must examine whether reliance was reasonable, whether contrary authority was concealed or disregarded, and whether the president acted honestly. Neither condemnation nor absolution should precede that examination.
Some will shift to betrayal of public trust, correctly observing that impeachment extends beyond intentional constitutional violations and statutory crimes. That ground can encompass grave abuse of discretion or inexcusable neglect. It deserves serious consideration, especially when public funds are involved. It also requires more than attaching a broader label to the same evidentiary gap.
In Gonzales III v. Office of the President, the Supreme Court explained that betrayal of public trust involves misconduct attended by bad faith and gravity comparable to the other impeachment grounds. An ordinary error of judgment cannot casually be promoted into an offense warranting removal. Proponents must establish the seriousness and circumstances of the alleged betrayal.
The court’s reservation of possible liability for authors, proponents and implementors also needs careful reading. Its application of the operative fact doctrine to certain irreversible programs and innocent beneficiaries does not give responsible officials blanket immunity. But withholding that protection is different from finding particular officials guilty. Exposure to proceedings and an adverse judgment are separate matters.
There is useful precedent here. In its February 2015 resolution in Araullo v. Aquino concerning the Disbursement Acceleration Program, the court addressed essentially this confusion. It explained that reserving liability for determination by proper tribunals neither discarded the presumption of good faith nor automatically imputed bad faith to the program’s authors and implementors.
That precedent does not settle Marcos’ liability. It clarifies why critics cannot treat language preserving possible accountability as proof that culpability has already been established. The relevant facts must still be examined in the proper proceeding. Constitutional invalidity opens a legal inquiry; it does not manufacture all the evidence needed to resolve it.
Impeachment is political, certainly. The House determines whether to impeach, and the Senate determines whether to convict. But political judgment must still engage the constitutional grounds and the evidence. Calling the process political cannot justify treating every unpopular presidential decision, or every successful constitutional challenge, as sufficient reason for removal.
There are institutional hurdles as well. At least one-third of all House members must support impeachment, while conviction requires two-thirds of all senators. Any renewed effort must comply with the applicable constitutional bar against repeated impeachment proceedings within one year. Public excitement cannot substitute for those requirements or guarantee the necessary votes.
The stronger prospective argument concerns what happens after the court has clarified the constitutional limits. Officials who knowingly repeat prohibited arrangements face a more difficult claim of good faith. Compliance with the ruling should therefore be watched closely. Seeking reconsideration is legitimate, but officials must observe whatever orders remain enforceable while the court considers the motion.
Those seeking accountability should obtain the documents, trace the decisions and establish what the president actually did. If evidence reveals deliberate circumvention or a grave betrayal, pursue it. Until then, promising an easy impeachment merely because Marcos signed the budgets mistakes a serious constitutional ruling for a completed prosecution. The public deserves a case that can withstand scrutiny beyond a partisan audience.
The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of the People’s Television Network Inc.
