Impeachment plotters, such stupid bunglers

ONE would be so naïve not to think that the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte are nothing but a Marcos-Romualdez clan’s plot to remain in power after 2028 and even after 2034. Only and only Sara is the obstacle to its despicable agenda.

It is disgusting that these conspirators, led by House Speaker Martin Romualdez, think Filipinos are so stupid that they can fool them into believing that their aim is noble, to combat corruption at the highest levels of government.

But as that ancient Greek saying puts it, “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” In this case, I mean the other usage of the term “mad” — bungling and idiotic.

What kind of plotter would have four impeachment complaints filed — one on Dec. 2 (by Sen. Risa Hontiveros’ Akbayan activists and their allies); a second on Dec. 4 (by communist personalities and front organizations); a third on Dec. 19 by a group of obscure priests that included an ally of former vice president Leni Robredo; and finally on Feb. 5, by members of the House of Representatives, clearly under the House speaker’s direction who allegedly were promised P50 million in “ayuda” funds and P150 million in public works money for their districts.

I suspect the second impeachment complaint is former vice president Robredo’s operation: its endorser at the House of Representatives is Camarines Sur Rep. Gabriel Bordado, Robredo’s running mate in the current mayoral elections for Naga City. The priests who filed the complaint reportedly had campaigned for her in the last elections.

Strange

Strange bedfellows though: the only other endorser for this second complaint is party-list representative Lex Colada, against whom the Iloilo provincial police last Nov. 23 filed charges of being an accessory to murder. The police alleged that the gun used in killing a barangay captain the month before was registered in his name. Did the administration promise that it would “take care” of the charges if he helped in Sara’s impeachment?

That might not even have been necessary. Colada’s wife is Jennifer Garin, mayor of the town of Guimbal in Iloilo, and a cousin of Rep. Janette Garin. The Department of Justice ordered last month the withdrawal of cases against Janette Garin for the deaths allegedly caused by the Dengvaxia anti-dengue vaccine that she championed when she was health secretary. Coincidence or reward for helping the oust-Sara plot?

Haven’t they heard of the Constitution’s Paragraph 5, Section 3, Article XI: “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year”? The impeachable officers are the president, the vice president, members of the Supreme Court, members of the constitutional commissions (civil service, elections and audit) and the Ombudsman.

In this case, they initiated not just another complaint two days after the first, but then two more.

It is amazing that these ignoramuses haven’t heard of this so-called one-year ban on impeachment complaints, when the Supreme Court had ruled on this issue in two cases, that involving the move against Chief Justice Hilario Davide in 2003 and the other involving Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in 2010.

In effect

In both cases, the court ruled that the one-year ban is in effect when a complaint is filed with the House and the latter takes an initial action on it. After that, another complaint against the same official can’t be filed.

House Secretary-General Reginald Velasco sat on the first three impeachment moves for two months and did not transmit the fourth complaint until Congress went on recess on Feb. 7. He didn’t refer it even to his boss Speaker Romualdez, whose office Senate President Francis Escudero sarcastically noted that was just a few meters away. In a press briefing, Escudero, in fact, several times rhetorically asked why it took the House two months to transmit the impeachment complaint, hinting that the fourth complaint violates the one-year ban.

Velasco tactlessly — or stupidly — told the media that he didn’t refer the three complaints to his boss since “none of these appeared to be supported by the required one-third of the House membership.” Indeed, all of the three complaints, upon the shallowest scrutiny, wouldn’t stand in any court.

Velasco, in reality a glorified clerk, had the power to keep his boss in the dark about such an important development in the House, and to decide that an impeachment complaint won’t get the required votes by one-third of the House? He is not even an elected district nor party-list representative nor a lawyer. His main qualification is that of being the man Friday of Speaker Romualdez’s father, Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez. He should be given the Americans’ tried-and-tested water treatment to reveal to the nation that he was just following his boss’ orders.

The allegations of Sara’s mismanagement of the finances of her office and the Education Department have already been proven false, as the Commission on Audit raised no such issues after its audit of her offices.

Hilarious

Several of the other complaints are even hilarious, such as her alleged “failure to condemn Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea,” “implied threat to the attendees of the 2024 State of the Nation Address when she called herself the ‘designated survivor'” and “throwing a tantrum when certain police personnel assigned to her security detail were recalled.” It seems, everything they didn’t like about Sara, they saw as impeachable offenses.

Velasco told media that 12 congressmen whom he refused to identify asked for time to endorse another complaint that would be signed by the required one-third of the House. This turned out to be the fourth complaint which was purportedly signed by 215 congressmen on Feb. 5 and which was supposedly submitted to the Senate president late afternoon of that day, minutes before it adjourned.

It is not clear from Escudero’s statements if he considers the complaint filed, since his secretary-general told the press that afternoon that the complaint still needs “complete staff work” before it is officially submitted to the Senate.

Whatever, Sara Duterte’s lawyers have petitioned the Supreme Court to order the Senate to stop the impeachment trial, claiming it violated the one-year ban.

They pointed out the first three documents submitted to and officially accepted by the House secretary-general were already, as the Constitution defined it, impeachment complaints. Therefore, no other impeachment complaint can be initiated within a period of one year, which the second, third and fourth complaints inarguably are.

Immediately

The House’s rules on the impeachment require the secretary-general to immediately submit it to the House speaker, who will then order the committee on justice whether the complaint is valid (“in form and substance”). If it is, it has to be referred to the Senate that would start proceedings for an impeachment trial. If not, it is thrown into the dustbin.

Velasco, however, froze the impeachment process by simply refusing to transmit the impeachment complaint to the House speaker — which he didn’t have the power to do. This was deliberately made by Velasco in order to avoid the application of the one-year ban. However, Sara’s lawyers pointed out that this was a deliberate violation of the House’s rules.

Sara’s lawyers pointed out: “The House of Representatives already took initial action by deliberately freezing the first three impeachment complaints. There is no question at this point that the freezing of the first three impeachment complaints was calculated and deliberately made by the respondent in order to avoid the application of the one-year bar. But the act of freezing itself constitutes Congress’ initial action on the First Three Complaints, the act performed by the respondent House of Representative.”

As he had done in the case of the “Pirma” plot to amend the Constitution to install a parliamentary government which he would be prime minister, Romualdez botched this latest conspiracy to remove Sara. He couldn’t rein in the greed of the Akbayan and the communists to rush the filing of impeachment complaints, who probably thought they’d be first in line to get their rewards in the form of cash or ayuda allocations. The result were ridiculous complaints which sabotaged the entire impeachment conspiracy.

I’m amazed at the conspirators’ stupidity. Didn’t it even cross their minds that Sara could file a case to stop the impeachment at the Supreme Court, 12 of the 15 members of which were appointed by her father, the former president? These 12 would even encounter face-to-face Duterte, as he is one of Sara’s lawyers.

Speaker Romualdez and Senate President Escudero — the respondents in the case filed at the court — should be patriotic enough to withdraw the case, for the court to save its energies, time and taxpayers’ money.

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Impeachment plotters, such stupid bunglers
Source: Breaking News PH