Salvador Panelo said the Duterte camp is certain of at least five acquittal votes in the upcoming impeachment trial of Sara Duterte. In a 23-member senate, it takes 16 votes to convict and 8 votes to acquit.
His five acquittal votes will be those of Bong Go, Bato dela Rosa, Robin Padilla — of course unquestionable – but he adds two more: the mother-and-son Villars.
It would appear that Panelo has not profiled the senator judges well. If the Renato Corona impeachment is the precedence (and there is no other precedence for an impeachment trial that was completed; Joseph Estrada’s wasn’t), there were only 10 senator judges who trended to convict in the initial days of the trial. On verdict day, 20 voted to convict, only 3 voted to acquit.
Profiles reveal not only the political interests of the senator-judges. They also show us their behavior in partisanship. In the Corona impeachment trial for example, some showed remarkable turnabouts from their political interests. The reason partly for the shift is the reality of arm-twisting.
Although a constitutionally prescribed juridical body, an impeachment court is never disaffected by external pressures. For instance, public opinion can demand a popular verdict. Equally, there are other forces: Malacañang influence for one. It goes without saying that the Philippine presidency has unbridled powers to wage a carrot-and-stick approach.
In the Corona impeachment, which began in the House on December 12, 2011 and ended with a guilty verdict on May 29, 2012, both Ejercito half-brothers made surprising U-turns. In the House, JV Ejercito signed the impeachment resolution. In the Senate, Jinggoy Estrada voted to convict. Yet both were not politically aligned with the Benigno Aquino III administration. Proof of this is that in 2013, Aquino’s Department of Justice accused him of pocketing P183 million in kickbacks from fake projects.
Of course Jinggoy had an ax to grind against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whose midnight appointment of Corona as chief justice was an impetus for the impeachment. Arroyo had unseated his father, the president, with whom he was jailed for plunder in 2001.
In his verdict speech, Jinggoy alluded to his family’s trauma over his father’s impeachment. “This same process failed to achieve justice for my own father.” He sounded like he was going to vote to acquit.
In the end, and referring to non-disclosure of assets in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth, he concluded: “The Chief Justice is one official who must have a deep knowledge and appreciation of the law. I therefore make this painful decision with a heavy heart — in my eyes he is guilty.” He thus believed in the impeachment process if it did not affect him.
A conviction vote then for Sara Duterte is possible from each of the Ejercito half-brothers. Lest we forget, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had appointed Jinggoy’s daughter Janella Ejercito Estrada as executive director of the National Authority for Child Care with the rank of undersecretary. A vote to acquit can deprive Janella of her national position. With their loss of their San Juan baluarte to the Zamoras, it is important to keep Janella’s position.
It is the same perspective for two other senator-judges: Sherwin Gatchalian and Mark Villar. Gatchalian’s brother Rex is in the Marcos Jr. Cabinet as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Rex loses his alter-ego-of-the-president vantage point if his senator brother Sherwin votes to acquit. Mark Villar’s wife Emmeline Aglipay Villar is also a Marcos Jr. appointee as undersecretary for international affairs of the DSWD.
The security of political interests is not to be underestimated. Besides for the Villars, Camille Villar is running for senator in the Marcos Jr. administration ticket. Can the Villars afford to lose one family member in the Senate? No, they can’t. They had already tasted the benefits of having two family members sit simultaneously.
Ergo, can they afford Cynthia’s loss as House representative for Las Piñas? There is friction among the Aguilars and Villars of Las Piñas. Cynthia is running against the candidate of her sister-in-law Imelda Aguilar who had bolted the Villars’ Nacionalista Party to form her own ticket against them. Each one must defend one’s piece of the fracture, Cynthia no less.
Lest we forget, the Villar family’s Nacionalista Party had signed an alliance with Marcos Jr.’s Partido Federal only last August for the 2025 elections. In fact, they have ties that may bind — in 2010, Marcos Jr. ran as senator under the Nacionalista Party. Nacionalista was the party of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. The Villars have a full plate going against voting for acquittal.
To be junked in the senatorial elections at the last minute will be a painful prospect for the senator reelectionists running under the Marcos Jr. administration ticket. Junking is an easy practice. There are currently five reelectionists: Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Bong Revilla, and Francis Tolentino who is hanging on to dear life in current surveys for the 12th spot. If they vote to acquit, the administration is capable of making maneuvers that will translate to their losing the elections. The case of Imee Marcos is a class of its own.
Bong Revilla is a no-brainer. He was not a party mate of Benigno Aquino III, yet he voted to convict Corona. He cannot afford to lose the 2025 senatorial elections.
The same can be said of candidates who have relatives in the present Senate. Aside from Camille Villar, there is one other candidate who has a sibling in the Senate. Erwin Tulfo, of course, is the brother of Raffy Tulfo.
Here, the Binays can be the odd persons out. Abby Binay, Senator Nancy’s sister, is running for senator in the Marcos ticket. Nancy is running for Makati mayor. But pitted against her is Abby’s husband. Who will the Marcoses favor among the warring Binays? They can support Nancy’s win as city mayor — provided she votes to convict.
The many who are deeply doubtful of Loren Legarda, Grace Poe, and Migs Zubiri can find elements in their profiles that indicate conviction trends. Those fears are not unfounded. Legarda is a seasoned political butterfly. As a butterfly though, she flutters for whichever administration is in power. That is what she did in the Corona impeachment.
She began her verdict speech: “Mahirap humusga sapagkat tayo ay tao lamang” (It is difficult to judge because we are only human). But she said that sitting as an impeachment judge is a “sacred mandate I must keep, and I do it in all honesty and sincerity, without anything in exchange, without bending to any perceived pressure.” In terms of political ethics, she hit the nail on the head. Yet Loren was silent in the six years of extrajudicial killings under Rodrigo Duterte. As was Grace Poe.
Note: Loren as House representative was absent during the voting for the ABS-CBN franchise; she cited “conflict of interest,” yet she was House deputy speaker at that time which entitles her membership in all House committees. Had she voted for ABS-CBN, her son’s large solar power business holdings would have gotten Duterte ostracism.
In her Corona verdict speech, Loren recalled the 1997 case of an interpreter in a regional trial court who was removed from service because she failed to declare in her SALN earnings from her public market stall business. At that point, Loren was predictable, even if she tried to quote Thomas Jefferson. “If we acquit, we will lower the bar for public accountability. It is not easy, but we must do it.” She voted to convict. That line applies to Sara Duterte to a T.
The nebulous Grace Poe recently gave us a clue on how she will vote. Chairing the Senate finance committee, she announced last end-November that the monster budget of the Vice President will not be restored. It will still be reduced at the General Appropriations bill level to only P733 million. JV Ejercito made telltale intimations that during the closed-door caucus of the senators on Sara’s budget, “a compromise was reached.” See.
Joel Villanueva is easy to predict. He is a whoever-is-in-power player. He played that game so well under the last Aquino, who favored him with the position of TESDA (or Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) director general. As party list representative in the House, he was accused by the Ombudsman of misusing his pork barrel funds. He has openly sided with Sara Duterte in restoring her budget cuts as vice president despite the overwhelming public opinion against the funds scandal. It appears, however, that he has compromised.
That only indicates that the born-again preacher Villanueva has joined the culture of vote-getting by evading a critical look at anomalies in public office. Obviously he believes that the Duterte vote is still sizable. His family has positions to protect — his father Eddie currently sits in the House and his brother Jonjon is currently the municipal mayor of Bocaue, Bulacan. The previous mayor was the senator’s late sister Joni Villanueva Tugna. The Villanuevas have become a dynasty.
Villanueva has only learned to play politics in his rhetoric. The bottom line is, he can vote to convict.
Alan Peter Cayetano may be mercurial in his defense of the Dutertes. After all, they were party mates in the 2016 presidential elections. But the configurations have changed. Sister Pia is a Marcos candidate in the upcoming midterm elections. That can be the factor for his vote to convict Sara Duterte. His friend/foe Migs Zubiri is a political player not unlike Loren Legarda and hence can vote to convict. The Zubiris have much at stake in Bukidnon province. They cannot give that up.
It goes without saying that Chiz Escudero will vote to convict. He can be a formidable choice to be the next vice president.
Salvador Panelo, again, believes that Imee Marcos is not truly and sincerely with the Duterte camp. Nevertheless, we do not have to consider the atrocious presidential sister as voting to convict. In the final tally, with Risa Hontiveros and Koko Pimentel, 19 votes to convict is a distinct possibility. The numbers game in the Senate is never about integrity.
To accompany all that, there is one indispensable ingredient — a palpable public clamor to unseat Sara Duterte as vice president. Senators would love to play to that kind of rafter. – Rappler.com