SOME administration critics have been calling lately for the filing of an impeachment complaint against the President after he said Chinese fishermen may fish in Philippine waters under an agreement he has with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “That is our agreement,” the President said. “You can fish here. I will fish there.”
An impeachment is the only case that may be filed against a sitting president. But it is not a court process that may end for final decision in the Supreme Court. It is a political process where judgment is handed down not by judges or justices, but by congressmen and senators.
If an impeachment case is filed against the President, it would go to the proper House of Representatives committee which would decide whether to send it on to the entire assembly. If one-third of the House membership votes to impeach, the case goes to the Senate for trial and a vote of two-thirds of the Senate membership is needed for conviction.
In every step of the way, the members of the House and the Senate, all politicians, will be voting on whether to send the impeachment case forward. In the incoming 18th Congress, the House is dominated by pro-administration congressmen, such that President Duterte is being asked to state his preferences for incoming speaker. Any impeachment case against him is, therefore, likely to fall by the wayside.
It may be noted, in this connection, that there is also a great deal of impeachment talk against United States President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice in his alleged efforts to hold back the Department of Justice investigation into Russian meddling in the US elections in 2016.
Trump has dared the opposition Democrats to file the impeachment complaint. It may be approved in the Democratic Party-dominated House of Representatives but it is not likely to pass the Senate, which is now controlled by President Trump’s Republican Party.
In the Philippines, as in the US, we can expect talk of impeachment to continue, for it makes a good story. In both countries, developments like this are a great part of the political scene. They may not have an immediate impact but they become part of the total picture of politics and government that helps shape the public perception of their leaders.
The impeachment talk against President Duterte on his policy of cooperation in the development and utilization of the country’s marine resources will very likely remain just talk for, as has been pointed out, impeachment is a political process and the House of Representatives is not likely to approve any such complaint.
We must thus keep the impeachment talk in the proper perspective – as a political development that will be part of the Duterte legacy but with no chance of moving forward in Congress at this time.
