Let us all be sane – and be safe–, and be done with the political crackpot on the nation’s plate. The most important word in the Constitution, “forthwith”, has never been most critical in our history. In plain language, let’s get over with the current political brouhaha real quick before the world sees us a laughable people.
Or a big joke.
To start off, let’s consider the plain thing, which can be the main thing. Vice President Sara Duterte was only bluffing when she threatened bloodbath if the impeachment trial would proceed as planned, even if suspiciously delayed as many have thought.
Like father, like daughter: in other words, she was only joking and as a result some conjured up a scenario not unlike a gunfight in the Ok corral where the good guys shot it out with the bad guys. Tragic.
Looking back, it would not have been so bad if the Senate had listened to the voice of the sane , or so it seemed, in their midst. The call or consensus of the majority was to dismiss the impeachment complaint outright. Except that the more sane among the so-called wise wanted to follow the constitutional mandate, which is a no-brainer. Forthwith means the same in any language.
To show the world that she means business, apart from taking four trips abroad in less a month, the vice president as respondent has taken the services of 16 lawyers from a topnotch law firm. The grapevine has it that the job at hand would require P 45 million in acceptance fee plus another P10 million in legal fee.
The financial requirement is no peanuts for a simple politician whose father also reportedly needs P150 million monthly for his foreign defense team working their butt off to save his own in the International Criminal Court at The Hague where he is on the dock for crime against humanity.
There’s always two sides to the news: the good and the bad. First the good: there’s possibility that an interim release being worked out by the foreign lawyers might be granted. The bad news: there’s also the possibility that it might not, given certain things beyond the ICC judges, control. In any case, the foreign defenders have to be paid the handsome fee.
The vice president’s lawyers have soon told the impeachment court “not so fast”, asking the court to dismiss the case because it violated the Constitutional provision not allowing more than one impeachment in one year.
It’s the same thing most pro-Duterte senators or impeachment judges have been pushing for from the get-go, except that the Senate minority of two pushed the envelope further that the impeachment court must proceed with the trial.
The senator judges, some donning the sacred robes, some discarding it as not stylish enough, agreed to send summons to the vice president which the her 16-lawyer team had answered before the deadline expired, thank you. After all, there’s such a thing as professionalism.
There is a growing optimism now that the impeachment trial will proceed, perhaps even beyond the 19th Congress. There are new members of the 20th Senate who look forward to it,there are those, who, understandably frown against it.
Trial is now inevitable, according to the House prosecution team , now that the vice president has answered the summon, not replied to the charges. The prosecution team has 5 days to submit its reply to the vice president’s answer. It’s newly minted mouthpiece is too eager-beaver about his job he volunteered they only needed 3 days to make it.
In war, Adolf Hitler was quoted as saying, you open a door to a dark place where you don’t really know what’s in its darkest part. The subsequent pre-trial that is expected will reveal what may possibly lie in the darkest part of the impeachment case of the vice president.
In the 18th century, the English philosopher John Stuart Mills wrote that the representative form of government, unlike monarchy, might be weakened or handicapped by the election of representatives of low intellect. Was he also insinuating a worst possibility?
The vice president has been charged with seven deadly sins in the current impeachment case, ranging from graft and corruption to betrayal of public trust. Part of those alleged sins was her threat of hiring an unnamed assassin to take out the President the First Lady and the Speaker of the House if she were assassinated first. She was seen and heard about her plan publicly on television.
This alone , according to legal experts, is an incontrovertible evidence against her. She or her 16 lawyer bright boys have to address the issues of fraudulent or fake recipients of intelligence funds. Inevitably, the fact, publicly on nationwide television she showed how wanted to decapitate the president’s head while he was speaking on stage.
The vice president’s legal team, in asking for the dismissal of the impeachment, may not too sure what lies at the darkest side of the trial that the prosecution team will unfold. The devil is always on the detail.
But the Senate impeachment court is bound by the Constitution to try, not dismiss, and decide, whether it’s acquittal or conviction. When Jill in the “Silver Chair” written by C.S.Lewis asked Aslan, the Lion, if there’s another way to get to the water source without passing by him, Aslan replied: there’s no be other way
Apparently, that’s the same route for the vice president, unless her lawyers find a loophole or the Supreme Court decides, enough is enough. The slippery slope is in sight.
