08/06/2025
Parody in the Senate
There is something about VP Sara's delayed impeachment trial and Escudero's evasion of constitutional duty that tells us all of this foot-dragging is just the tip of the iceberg.
As students, we're taught to value civic duty and the power of the Constitution. But when government bodies openly disregard constitutional mandates, it sends the message that laws are bendable depending on who holds power.
It's not as if the House had to go through a damning fight to initiate Duterte's impeachment just to compel Escudero's seeming reluctance to proceed with the trial.
If anything, the Senate's delay is a plain misrepresentation of the Charter and its provisions.
Specifically, Section 3, Article XI of the Constitution stipulates that once a "verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed."
And by legal definitions, "forthwith" signifies that an action or event must be done immediately or without delayโthe same goes for the Articles of Impeachment that the Senate is currently redirecting to the next Congress.
Their primary defense is due to "time constraints," in which the departing senators will step down on June 30 while the newly elected 12 senators will assume office; therefore, as a "continuing body," the trial can continue into the 20th Congress.
All while nowhere in the Constitution is there a clause providing a "transfer" of power from the current Congress to the next. The Senate's flip-flopping of responsibilityโand a sluggish one at that, considering Escudero's resetting of the House prosecution panelโs reading of charges from June 2 to June 11โis otherwise just a flagrant violation of the Constitution itself.
It also does not help that Sen. Bato Dela Rosa had filed a Senate resolution seeking the โde factoโ dismissal of the impeachment case against Duterte, which is another misreading of the Constitution, as according to Section 3 of the same article, the Senate's jurisdiction is only over rendering decisions on the impeachment trial, not determining whether the trial will convene at all.
Such conduct is a facade of the Senate's stagnation and its failure to administrate Duterte's mounting charges, notwithstanding her betrayal of public trust. Parallel to this betrayal is Escudero's masking behind technicalities even as his credibility as the Senate president draws flak over his potential bias to Duterte.
The Senate's deferral of Duterte's impeachment is not just an obstruction or travesty of justice but an abandonment of the very obligation and duty to the public that had once entrusted such power to them.
More than that, it tells us that if our highest officials can ignore rules and still face no consequence, then the culture of accountability we're trained to ratify inside school grounds is just as futile as pulling a sword to a gunfight.
And unless they uphold their constitutional mandate on public custody by proceeding with the trial at once without bending the Constitution, the public must once again brandish its power over any administration that fails to do its sole duty.
In this case, if the Senate won't obey the Constitution, then the need for EDSA III is no longer far-fetched.
