MEMBERS of Congress led by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III commented after the filing of an impeachment complaint against President Duterte that it is baseless and it is, therefore, not expected to prosper.
It surely will not prosper but the basic reason is that impeachment is a numbers game. The issues are important but those voting on them are not judges following the rules of court. They are all politicians and all they need to follow is the process set in the Constitution.
Article XI, Accountability of Public Officers, in the Constitution provides that “the President, the Vice President, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and convicted of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.”
The House of Representatives has the exclusive power to initiate an impeachment. The complaint must be filed or endorsed by a member of the House. It is then referred to the proper committee within three session days. The committee, by a majority vote, submits its report to the House within 60 session days, and the House calendars it within 10 session days. If approved by at least one-third of the House, the complaint goes to the Senate for trial. A two-thirds vote in the Senate is needed for conviction.
With the pro-administration “super-majority” in the House, the complaint filed against President Duterte by Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano is not likely to make it past the committee. Speaker Alvarez has already declared the charges in the complaint baseless and with his leadership on the line – as in the case of the death penalty bill – the impeachment complaint will be quickly disposed of.
This is probably the reason the Magdalo solon filed the complaint after the start of the recess. There can be no move to dispose of it until May 2 when Congress resumes its sessions after the Holy Week recess. It is thus now being discussed in media, along with a plan of administration solons to file an impeachment complaint against Vice President Leni Robredo.
The complaint against President Duterte has to do with alleged killings in the ongoing anti-drugs campaign of the government and by an alleged death squad in Davao when he was mayor, and alleged graft and corruption at the Davao city hall. There is no solid evidence in all these charges, according to Speaker Alvarez as well as Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles.
As for Vice President Robredo, administration solons want to impeach her for speaking out against “extra-judicial killings” in the anti-drugs campaign in a video shown at a United Nations forum. This move, unless stopped by President Duterte himself, could very well advance for the same reason the presidential impeachment case is an impossible one – numbers.
The two impeachment cases may occupy news pages for many more weeks as they cannot now be legally disposed of. We can only hope that all those concerned will tire of repeating themselves and set these cases aside before they do some real harm to the nation’s stability.