Lurch

Judging by the tone of their uniform pronouncements, the congressmen are extremely unhappy with their Senate colleagues. But that only betrays their own serious miscalculation.

For some mysterious reason, the leadership of the House sat on the first three impeachment complaints filed against Vice President Sara Duterte until the very last moment. Then on the final day of session, a “fourth” impeachment complaint suddenly materialized. Like an obedient herd, 215 congressmen lined up to sign a document they might not have read at all – and certainly did not deliberate in open session.

After the signing blitz that happened during a hastily organized “caucus,” the “fourth” impeachment complaint was rushed to the Senate by a convoy complete with motorcycle cops. That show of newly discovered urgency was for naught. The matter of impeaching the Vice President was not on the agenda on the last session day before a long break.

To this day, it is not clear who actually wrote the “fourth” impeachment complaint – although this did not vary significantly from the three complaints filed much earlier. The House leadership did not bother to appraise the public about the abrupt decision to have this document signed and hurriedly delivered to the Senate.

The House leadership has been unduly secretive of late. It has not, for instance, produced a copy of the enrolled bill that formed the basis for the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). No one knows who filled in the controversial blanks in the signed final report of the bicameral conference committee.

The House leadership keeps too many details away from the public eye. We will find out about those details eventually – most likely by way of subpoenas issued by the courts.

A petition has been filed with the Supreme Court claiming the 2025 GAA to be unconstitutional. Petitioners have included a demand for naming the members of the technical working group that filled in the controversial blank items.

Last Monday, criminal cases were filed against House Speaker Martin Romualdez and his closest henchmen for falsifying legislative documents leading to congressional insertions amounting to more than P200 billion. The court proceedings will at least flush out the details now kept from the public eye.

Senate President Francis Escudero says the impeachment process will have to wait until sessions resume next June. To the congressmen’s dismay, he revised that estimate further, saying the most practicable time the Senate could tackle impeachment will be after the President’s State of the Nation Address late July.

For some reason, congressmen thought the Senate will behave much like the herd in the House and act with dispatch. But the Upper Chamber is a much more deliberative body than the lower chamber. It also tends to be more independent, answerable as the senators are to a broad national constituency.

The Senate’s reluctance to rush into the impeachment trial catches the House effort in a lurch. Every tactical calculation is now moot.

The impeachment effort is certainly a political process. Because of this, timing is everything. Momentum could decide success or failure. As things stand, the trial – if it happens at all – will occur in a much altered context.

The House leaders needed to have the trial happen coinciding with the campaign period. It would be the platform for defining the themes and issues to favor administration candidates.

Since it is now certain the Senate will deal with this impeachment effort only after the elections, much wind is taken out of the administration’s sail. After the midterm election, the sitting president becomes a political lame duck. Many of the congressmen now leading the impeachment effort might have lost their seats.

With the trial schedule set back, Sara Duterte has ample time to muster her forces. She holds all the cards. The post-elections balance of forces could be more favorable to her: the rising political star against a fading incumbent.

Ahead of the trial, procedural questions may be filed against the hastily filed impeachment. If the trial pushes through, Sara may choose to battle it out at the impeachment court. Or, she may decide to resign her post and therefore avoid conviction.

The end goal of the impeachment architects is to have Sara disqualified from holding public office. If she evades conviction by the Senate sitting as impeachment court, her political standing will be given a large boost. If she resigns without penalty, she will remain qualified to contest the highest office.

Delay in the conduct of the trial leaves the impeachment architects with nothing to do in the interim. There is a real possibility all the issues mustered to politically invalidate Sara will slip from the public mind. At the very least, the impeachment trial will not be available to distract attention away from the budget scandal.

It is now clear, with the benefit of hindsight, that the rushed impeachment of Sara could backfire on the congressmen. It has no clear way forward.

There are limits to how much the congressmen may browbeat the Senate in a vain attempt to move the trial forward. Doing so may further antagonize the senators who will be sitting as judges.

At the moment, there seems to be little enthusiasm among the senators to allow themselves to be used as ornaments in a House-induced carnival. There is no reason for that enthusiasm level to improve.