The cold Christmas breeze has set in, making our mornings more pleasant even as the feud between the Marcos and Duterte camps reaches a boiling point. If things turn out as planned, the first volley of impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte will likely be filed soon, one year since it was first hatched but probably a little too late even for the shortest of cuts. (Akbayan filed one on Monday afternoon, December 2, after this newsletter was sent).
I can tell you that the Rappler newsroom would be the first to sigh over this move — for the simple reason that it would mess with our December. Like most Philippine companies, Rappler takes its Christmas festivities seriously. We compete against each other’s units for the best Christmas party performance, bringing heart and soul and precious hours in between deadlines to win the prize. Failing to do so leaves wounds that take time to heal (don’t get me started!) and which no copious amount of party alcohol could salve.
The country has witnessed two impeachment trials, both cluttering our Christmases. Read about them in “A tale of 2 impeachment trials.”
There was that December, 13 years ago, when we welcomed a political storm — because it was just the news environment we needed as we prepared to launch Rappler in January 2012. What better way to barge into the public space than an all-hands-on-deck coverage of the first-of-its kind political theater in the Philippines?
On December 12, 2011, with the imprimatur of then-president Benigno Aquino III, who was just on his second year in office, a total of 188 members of the House of Representatives voted to impeach his nemesis and the chief justice at the time, Renato Corona, for failing to disclose P183 million in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. (Read about the charges of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust here).
- The “overnight impeachment” was done all in a day. A draft complaint was circulated among lawmakers in the morning, the Speaker called for a caucus in the afternoon, and then House members voted to impeach Corona several hours later. Read all about it here.
- Corona was the first chief magistrate to be impeached. His trial at the Senate (which served as the impeachment court), started on January 16, 2012. After four months, 20 senator-judges convicted him on May 29, 2012. (He died in 2016).
- Only three senators voted in his favor, including then-senator and now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In acquitting Corona, Marcos said: “We may be faulted for erring on the side of conservatism. But what we are doing is redefining the relationship between branches of government, and when such great affairs of state are uncertain, the resulting instability puts every Filipino’s future in limbo.” Read more about Marcos’ “no” vote here.
- The senators who voted to acquit were later rewarded P50 million each (then-senator Ping Lacson said he did not accept).
Aquino named Maria Lourdes Sereno, 52 years old at the time, to replace Corona — the first woman to hold the post and the youngest head in the Court’s recent history. This did not sit well with the justices themselves. The blowback came six years later, in 2018 under former president Rodrigo Duterte, when the justices took it upon themselves to oust their chief, rendering a parallel impeachment process against Sereno moot and academic. Again, another historic first: The Supreme Court “impeaching” its own.
How about that December when a president faced trial at the Senate impeachment court over his scandalous lifestyle that was sustained by gambling money and fat commissions?
- He had barely warmed his seat in Malacañang when Joseph Estrada, the most popular president ever elected since democracy’s rebirth in 1986, was forced out of office in January 2001.
- After a series of damning media stories that exposed Estrada’s corrupt lifestyle in 2000, Estrada’s gambling crony Chavit Singson sealed the former president’s fate when he decided to turn whistleblower. The massive protests that followed compelled the House of Representatives to abandon the then-president and vote to impeach him in November 2000.
- The trial began on December 7, 2000 and ended in a walk-out by prosecutors in January 2001, which triggered thousands to march to EDSA. After months of persuasion, the military withdrew its support from Estrada and the rest is history.
The main beneficiary of Estrada’s ouster was then-vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who served the remaining three years of his term and then got a fresh six-year term when she won the 2004 presidential race.
Estrada was jailed and convicted, but was pardoned in 2007 by no less than Arroyo herself. He ran for mayor of Manila in 2013, and won. His two sons — Jinggoy and JV — are incumbent senators.
Indeed, in this country, it’s weather-weather lang ‘yan.
It bears noting that the Estrada and Corona episodes happened at a different time and in a different world of shared reality, of a general consensus among the public about what is right or wrong.
Today, in a post-truth world where we’re left to our own facts and devices to spread them, the ruling power will find the political waters murkier and much more choppy, putting to good test old tactics, skills, and even the resources that any incumbent administration can dispose of.
Impeachment advocates think it’s the most solid route to take Duterte out of the 2028 presidential race and stop her family from imposing themselves on this nation again. (If she’s convicted in a Senate trial, she would be barred from running.)
But 2028 is far, far away. In Ms. Duterte’s view, she need not do anything else beyond riling up her base, weaving tales of persecution and corruption (by the other side), and building a fiery storyline that spreads fast online and cascades to the ground. Who knows where that would lead her?
The esteemed constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas SJ wrote this at the height of the Corona trial, and was derided for it. Hindsight gives it a new sheen: “In an effort to balance things and to do away with criminal impunity, the temptation to appeal to a thousand past wrongs as justification for looking at present wrongs as remedially right can be blinding. Can an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth save the nation?”
It won’t, and it’s a waste of time, Marcos told lawmakers last week. Assuming he was not faking it.
Have a productive week ahead! – Rappler.com
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