By DIEGO MORRA
Senate President Chiz Escudero has replaced Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio as the real subject of the impeachment trial for compromising the Upper Chamber, not tackling the complaint submitted to the Senate on February 5, 2025 and throwing monkey wrenches into the process that the 1987 Constitution commanded the Senate to conduct forthwith, the plain meaning of which is known to anyone familiar with English.
However, as the saying goes, hindi mauubusan ng palusot ang ayaw kumilos at hahamakin ang lahat masunod lang ang kanyang boss. This is really tragic for Chiz “Runny Nose” Escudero, whose surname has been changed by critics to “Escuterte” and not without reason. He proved that the “perezoso” exists in the aerie of the Senate, which technically should be populated not by infants but by grizzled, hardworking politicians oozing with wisdom. That wisdom has sailed and, in a tragic turn, the Senate has become the dispenser of the strangest legal arguments for delaying the Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio impeachment trial. Others are not so civil to Escuterte, arguing that the Senate President is damn scared of the Dutertes, and afraid of earning the ire of Princess Fiona.
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Bayan Muna, the Makabayan Coalition and hundreds of organizations have demanded the trial of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio after diligent research confirmed their worst fear that she had squandered P612.5 million that she thought covered her confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs), wasted public money for the purchase or lease of her 12 satellite and extension offices and disbursed scores of millions as “reward money” for thousands of bogus informants through illegally-appointed special disbursing officers (SDOs.) The Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) slammed the Senate leadership, adding: “We demand no less than fidelity to the Constitution. We call on the Senate: Convene the impeachment court and proceed with the trial. Without delay. Without excuses. Let us move forward. Forthwith.”
So, what is really bugging Escuterte? The eminent former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno just wants Escuterte to conduct the trial forthwith, dump the gobbledygook about the pointless remanding of the impeachment complaint to the House of Representatives for the body to issue a “certification” that its submission suffers no legal infirmity and must be taken up seriously with dispatch. Puno belongs to the older generations of the Alpha Phi Beta fraternity that produced legal luminaries and scholars and public intellectuals like Renato Constantino. When the former chief justice scored Escuterte’s legal calisthenics on the impeachment trial, including the “remanding” of the complaint, he was speaking with authority in destroying the arguments raised by his younger fraternity brother.
Speaking as the chairman of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), Puno argued that the Senate crossed red flags by returning the Articles of Impeachment to the Lower House and committed grave abuse of discretion by suspending its jurisdiction. Under Article XI, Sec. 3 of the 1987 Constitution, the Senate cannot encroach on the House’s exclusive power to initiate impeachment by requiring the House to certify compliance with the one-year ban. Puno also stressed that Escuterte was engaging in circumlocutory delay by imposing novel requirements on the House that are not found in the Constitution or Senate Rules. Worse, members of the Senate raised possible defenses on behalf of the respondent, thus compromising the impartiality of the Senate as an impeachment court and throwing due process by the wayside.
Puno also asked if the mere lack of certification from the House of Representatives sufficient to justify remand of the case and suspension of trial. Puno says that no such requirement exists under the Constitution or established impeachment practice. To create such a requirement ex post facto undermines both the separation of powers and the rule of law. When the Senate voted 18-5 on June 10 to send the articles of impeachment back to the House of Representatives, it already caused inordinate delay despite describing the move as neither a dismissal nor termination of the case. This raised a ruckus among legal experts who said the Senate has no other duty except to proceed with the impeachment trial. They explained that it is only the Supreme Court that can decide if the processes in the impeachment are constitutional or not.
To add more fire to the Puno argument, no less than the UP College of Law questioned why the Senate remanded the Articles of Impeachment to the Lower House, pointing out that it must conduct the trial forthwith and not according to a timetable prepared by Escuterte, the Duterte allies and their troll army. The five colleges of law of the Ateneo system likewise blasted the Senate move, stressing that under the Constitution, it is the duty of the Upper Chamber to conduct the trial. The Faculty of Law of the University of Sto. Tomas and the De la Salle University (DLSU) also called on the Senate to start the trial without delay. If their protests were not strong enough, add the hundreds of schools belonging to the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) demanding that the trial commence forthwith.
Thousands of Filipinos furious about the unwarranted delay of the Duterte Jr. trial have protested before the Senate and hundreds of sites nationwide to show just how serious the clamor for the trial is. The Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines (CSMP) also accused Escuterte of allowing the Senate to become a playground for Duterte partisans. Earlier, the political coalition 1Sambayan denounced the Senate for trying to kill the impeachment case against Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, describing it as a weird tactic that disrespects the congressional inquiry that produced mountains of evidence against Duterte Jr. “It is a dangerous assault on the principles of accountability and justice.”
