By Michael Henry Yusingco
NOW MORE THAN EVER, civil society organizations (CSOs), journalists, and academics must revisit the last time impeachment was top of mind for every Filipino. They must review the transcripts of the impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona. Scrutinize every word and fully understand the peculiarity of impeachment as a constitutional process. Specifically, they must internalize the inability of senators to manage the inherent interplay of politics and law in an impeachment trial. Certain incumbent senators openly displaying partisanship is unconscionable, but it is not unprecedented.
The impeachment process, by constitutional design, aims to hold those public officials occupying the loftiest and most insulated positions in government to account for grave abuses of power. Moreover, senators, who function as judges in the impeachment court, sit as representatives of the people with each one carrying the weight of a national constituency. The moment they take their seats as senator-judges, their fidelity must shift — firmly and unquestionably — to the 1987 Constitution and the duty it imposes upon them. This would entail suppressing their respective partisan interests.
Reality, as we saw in 2012 and continue to see today, does not meet this standard. The impeachment trial of Mr. Corona exposed the prioritization of political self-interest over constitutional duty. The 1987 Constitution expects senators to be able to sit as impartial magistrates despite the political nature of their office. At the very least, to appear impartial. But too many senator-judges in that impeachment trial operated from a place of political expediency like posturing for headlines, gauging public opinion, protecting allies, or laying the groundwork for future campaigns.
When senator-judges lose the plot, they act more like senators than judges. They shamelessly discard the burgundy robe of an impartial jurist and put on the black cassock of an inquisitor. So, instead of just allowing the impeachment prosecutors and the impeached official to present their respective cases, they purposely intervene like they were conducting an inquiry in aid of legislation to set up a predetermined partisan decision. They intentionally disregard the responsibility to render a dispassionate judgment based on substantive evidence.
And this is how the path to acquittal takes shape. When partisan interests overrun the constitutional process, whether the evidence is weak or strong no longer matters. It is worth noting that senator-judges only need to convict or acquit. Judges in regular courts need to justify their decision in a lengthy written format. Particularly, how the evidence presented met the standards imposed by law to support their decision. Each senator-judge just gets a soapbox to elocute a brief explanation, which essentially allows them to get away with a decision that is purely based on partisan considerations.
This is why the Corona impeachment trial must be revisited, not out of nostalgia or historical curiosity, but out of necessity. We need to map the behavior of senator-judges then and compare it to how they may behave now. We need to examine what kind of evidence persuaded the chamber, what kind of rhetoric swayed public opinion, and what kind of judgment was ultimately rendered. For if we allow impeachment to be treated as just another exercise of partisan politics, then we erode one of the last few tools we have to hold power to account.
Remembering the Corona impeachment trial is not just evaluating the past. We are preparing for the future. Correspondingly, in the impeachment trial of Vice-President Sara Duterte, every senator-judge must be placed under the public microscope. Their legal reasoning must be questioned. Their constitutional understanding, or lack thereof, must be exposed. And their votes must be judged not only by history but by the electorate they purport to serve. We simply cannot have a future where impeachment can be effectively neutralized by factional alliances in the Senate.
So let us be clear: impeachment must never be about electoral calculations. It is about who deserves to stay in power and who does not. And this question simply cannot be answered by allegiance, ambition, or appeasement. The 1987 Constitution is not a suggestion. It is a binding document that gives legitimacy to every act of state power, including impeachment. If those charged with upholding it treat it like an inconvenience or a mere backdrop to political theater, then they betray not just their office but the very republic they swore to serve.
CSOs, journalists, and academics should resist the allure of the political bardagulan* dominating the impeachment discourse. Social media trolls, politicians, public officials and their designated spokespersons are the only beneficiaries of this constant mudslinging and muckraking. Giving primacy to political upmanship will only reinforce the path towards acquittal in this impeachment trial. Indeed, the goal must be to emphasize in the minds of the public, and the senator-judges, that in rendering judgement, the supremacy and sanctity of the 1987 Constitution must be the paramount consideration.
*Slang for an online dispute wherein hate speech is traded.
Michael Henry Yusingco is a law lecturer, constitutionalist, and senior research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center.
