You have to be a hopeless optimist to believe that the impeachment complaint against President Duterte had any chance in the House of Representatives.
Impeachment in this country, as we all know, is mainly a political exercise and a numbers game. And the House opposition has been rendered nearly non-existent.
The conditions that triggered the usual post-election mass defection from the once ruling Liberal Party (LP)-led coalition to the new majority have remained largely unchanged. There is no appetite at this time for the political butterflies to again flit to another side so soon.
Some of the congressmen at that session of the House committee on justice, which tackled the impeachment case, were at least honest enough in explaining why they couldn’t support the complaint. They asked: how could you impeach a president who enjoys the support of eight out of 10 Filipinos? President Duterte’s performance rating in the first quarter survey conducted by Social Weather Stations was 75 percent.
Also, the President has been in office for less than a year. The guy deserves a chance to prove himself, according to the House super majority.
Presidents always enjoy high ratings in their first year in office. This is true especially for those who win the presidency by a landslide.
It weakens democracy when a person who wins the presidency by a wide margin in free elections is yanked out of office less than a year into his term, and for doing exactly what he promised in his campaign.
Remember, Rodrigo Duterte the candidate had the clearest, most focused message of all: he would end criminality within six months, and he was ready to kill to fulfill his promise.
You have to admit that at least on the second part of the promise, the President has delivered dramatically.
As for the first part, you have to be as hopelessly optimistic as the folks behind the impeachment complaint to believe the promise could be achieved. But voters liked the message and picked Duterte overwhelmingly over his rivals.
Candidate Duterte even warned Filipinos not to vote for him because he would kill drug dealers and other criminals. So he has taken his victory by a landslide as an unequivocal mandate to fulfill his promise.
The House super majority isn’t about to oust this President for doing what he believes the people want him to do.
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So what were those behind the impeachment complaint thinking?
Rep. Gary Alejano of the party-list Magdalo group, who filed and endorsed the complaint that he surely knew was stillborn in the House, probably has his sights actually set on another forum for trying Dirty Rody.
Alejano and his supporters perhaps want to go through the motions of trying to impeach Duterte, to show that all legal venues for holding the President of the Philippines accountable for extrajudicial killings are being tested.
Once all these venues have been exhausted, with no end to drug-related killings, it could give the International Criminal Court (ICC) a reason to step in and try the President for crimes against humanity.
A lawyer has filed a complaint before the ICC against Duterte and 11 officials in connection with his brutal war on drugs. Those in the charge sheet include police chief Ronald dela Rosa, the secretaries of justice and the interior, and Senators Richard Gordon and Alan Peter Cayetano. Recently appointed foreign affairs chief Cayetano had defended the human rights record of the administration before a United Nations commission.
Alejano had promised to take his complaint to the ICC if the House killed the impeachment case – which the justice committee did, as everyone predicted.
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Survey ratings inevitably go south throughout a presidency. If we go by the record of Joseph Estrada, immense popularity is no guarantee of immunity from impeachment.
The vice president is crucial in the fate of efforts to kick out a president. The boozing, womanizing, gambling Erap suffered from public perceptions that his vice president, economist Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, could do a better job as president.
GMA was lucky that her vice president, Noli de Castro, refused to support efforts to unseat her through people power. The prospect of a De Castro presidency also spooked certain quarters.
Erap failed to finish even half of his term. Today, as mayor of Manila, he can afford to joke about failing to finish many things in his life: not college, and not his six-year presidential term.
He might lose his joking mood as a tough challenger for his current post looms. There’s a strong buzz that the House speaker who sent Erap’s impeachment case to the Senate for trial, Tondo boy-turned-billionaire businessman Manuel Villar, is eyeing the post of Manila mayor. But this is another story.
Supporters of President Duterte are pleased to note that the ratings of Vice President Leni Robredo plummeted in the latest surveys. At this point she poses no threat to Duterte.
If the judicial buzz is accurate, Robredo might even lose her post to challenger Bongbong Marcos – although if this happens, it could turn her into a rallying point against the administration.
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Instead of becoming smug, the President and his officials should use his high ratings to make the nation swallow the many bitter pills needed to put the country on the right track.
The start of an administration is the best time to push these pills, to implement long overdue reforms.
Noynoy Aquino, who enjoyed high approval ratings throughout his presidency with only slight dips near the end, used his popularity to get the reproductive health law and tax reforms passed.
There are many other difficult reforms waiting to be implemented, through legislation, executive orders, through actions by local government units.
Erap, during his short-lived presidency, wasted his popularity on self-indulgence. Popularity is not a license to do whatever one pleases with impunity, and it’s almost always fleeting in this country.
President Duterte should avoid the same mistake.