Ignorant about what impeachment is, Marcos misled his son
PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is so misinformed about what impeachment is that he misled even his son, Ilocos Rep. Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, into signing the complaint for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte last week.
This is not my opinion, but fact, straight from the horse’s mouth. In his press conference* on Feb. 5, Marcos said: “Once the impeachment complaints are filed, the House has no choice, the Senate has no choice, kailangan nilang i-proseso ang impeachment complaint.”
Marcos elaborated his false view of the impeachment process a few minutes later in this press conference: “Once the impeachment complaints are filed, the House and the Senate, they have no choice. Nakatali na ang kamay nila. They have to do this and they have to do it in recognition of the complaints that have been filed. So, iyon ang nangyari ngayon.”
When asked what advice he gave his son with regard to whether to sign the impeachment complaint or not, Marcos said:
“I told him the process has begun. Parang batas iyan… When you’re in the legislature, when you file a bill, OK, House Bill No. 123 etcetera, etcetera. ‘Pag file mo niyan, that bill takes a life of its own. Kahit anong gawin ng congressman na nag-file o senador na nag-file, kahit ayaw niya ‘yung mga changes na gagawin doon sa kanyang bill, wala na siyang magagawa because the bill is going through the process as it should. And part of that process will be amendments, etcetera, additions, all that. The impeachment complaint is exactly the same. Once it has been filed, there is a procedure that needs to be followed already.”
Marcos, in effect, told his son: “Sign it as whether you understand it or not, the process has begun and cannot be stopped.”
Pressured
Marcos even pressured his son, saying that he would be violating his oath of office as an Ilocos representative if he didn’t: “So, sabi ko, ‘nandiyan na tayo,’ sabi ko kay Cong. Sandro, sabi ko sa kanya, ‘The process has already begun. So, it’s your duty now to support that process. So, do your duty.” That’s what I told him, ‘Do your duty. You have to support the process. You are constitutionally mandated to carry out that process. And you’re a congressman, so do your duty.’ That’s what I told him. I didn’t know he’d be the first to sign, though.”
Marcos misinformed his son. The 30-year-old congressman’s duty, and that of his colleagues, was to evaluate the impeachment complaints and to agree or not whether to ask the Senate to undertake a trial. It wasn’t to join his uncle Speaker Martin Romualdez’s mob and agree to the piece of paper supporting the complaint. Even Marcos’ analogy that the impeachment complaint is like the process of enacting a bill is so wrong: Probably two-thirds of all bills filed by one Congress end up in some committee’s garbage bin.
For such an earthshaking political development such as an impeachment to remove the vice president, Marcos is so terribly, shockingly misinformed. As inarguably shown in his very own statements, Marcos thinks that the House of Representatives must back up an impeachment complaint filed and demand that the Senate undertake a trial immediately. For Marcos, it is merely a formality to get the two-thirds of the House members to have the articles of impeachment sent to the Senate.
Versions of Marcos’ very wrong view were disseminated by Speaker Romualdez to the House to increase the number of those purportedly wanting to impeach Sara: “Sign the complaint, we already have the two-thirds voting for [it].” He reportedly told this to the congressmen when he had only 80 signatures. The number increased to 153 after the representatives were told by Romualdez’s minions that the list of signatories would be the list of congressmen to be given P50 million in “ayuda” (money dole-outs) type funds and P100 million for infrastructure projects in their districts.
Marcos is totally, stupidly wrong. If a complaint is filed, the impeachment process can be aborted if only less than two-thirds agree to it. So, contrary to Marcos’ claim, the filing of an impeachment complaint does not “tie down” the congressmen’s hands that they just have to sign the document and have it transmitted to the Senate.
Complaints
Several complaints were filed by Yellow forces against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo but all were dismissed because of lack of the necessary votes. Complaints were filed against Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III on the grounds that his Disbursement Acceleration Plan — which ironically was used to bribe Senators to convict Chief Justice Renato Corona — violated the Constitution. These were also dismissed. Impeachment complaints were filed against President Rodrigo Duterte for alleged extrajudicial killings, but all were dismissed. Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez resigned before she could be tried for allegedly protecting President Arroyo from a corruption case.
Before martial law, the impeachment complaints against President Elpidio Quirino on allegations of corruption and against President Diosdado Macapagal for corruption were dismissed by the House of Representatives.
Marcos’ very wrong view that once an impeachment complaint is filed in the House of Representatives, it cannot be stopped is probably due to his mental confusion — or even deficits in episodic and working memory, that we all have to start worrying about.
He was a senator when the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona was undertaken. He probably asked his seatmate why the Senate had to undertake trial and was told that it was a constitutional mandate. He didn’t ask if the House was also required to do so. Probably in his confused mental processes, he thought that the House also had to.
It is solely the Senate that has no choice but to undertake a trial once the House transmits an impeachment complaint backed by two-thirds of its members. But a mere complaint does not compel it nor the Senate to “forthwith” undertake trial.
Wastebasket
The “articles of impeachment” sent by the House to the Senate secretary general will most likely be thrown into the wastebasket because they didn’t comply with the procedures as categorically required by the Constitution, which reads:
“A verified complaint for impeachment shall be included in the Order of Business within ten session days… and referred to the proper committee within three session days thereafter. The committee, after hearing and by a majority vote of all its members, shall submit its report to the House within sixty session days from such referral, together with the corresponding resolution. The resolution shall be calendared for consideration by the House within ten session days from receipt thereof.”
The House under Romualdez did not undertake any of these constitutional requirements.
The Constitution also stipulates: “A vote of at least one-third of all the Members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. The vote of each Member shall be recorded.”
I put the word “vote” in italics since it is defined under the rules of Congress; it refers to the formal expression of a decision or choice by lawmakers (senators or representatives) made in their plenary sessions (or formal meetings of the entire bodies) or in committees and recorded, whether these were made through voice vote, rising vote (standing to indicate their vote ), normal roll call vote, or by secret ballot — and formally recorded by each chambers’ secretariat. Alleged signatures on a sheet of paper, without even a date or time stamp, aren’t “votes nor a witness to the signing.
No such
No such votes in the House following these definitions and procedures were made by the House of Representatives. In fact, the Red party-list representatives who filed the first impeachment complaint in November (as well as Senate President Francis Escudero) were blaming Secretary General Reginald Velasco for “sitting” on their complaints for so long.
Instead, what Romualdez claimed was the document indicating the congressman’s agreement to the Sara impeachment were 11 pages that contained each House member’s name, district and signature, allegedly. But all of the pages had at the bottom, the notation (in all caps) “Complaint for Impeachment Against Vice President Sara Z. Duterte.”
Very crucially, though, there was no indication whether a congressman signing the document agreed or did not agree to the complaint for impeachment against Duterte. As I headlined my column last Friday, this is the dumbest impeachment complaint in our history.
That the list was so neatly done, without a single correction and with all of the names and signatures fitting into the fields has also raised suspicions that that many of these were fictitious. I’m confident any handwriting expert would be able to show that many of the names and their signatures were written by a team of forgers.
At the very least, to comply with the Constitution’s requirement for the complaint to be verified, the Senate would likely require that each purported congressman submit an affidavit that was sworn in before the House speaker or the House secretary general that he or she agrees to have Sara impeached. Will they? How long will this take?
*Transcript of press conference at https://ift.tt/0hwd1E2.
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The post Ignorant about what impeachment is, Marcos misled his son first appeared on Rigoberto Tiglao.
Ignorant about what impeachment is, Marcos misled his son
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