Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
THE question has been frequently asked: Is not the impeachment trial of the vice president an exercise in futility, considering that close to half of the Senate membership is allied with or sympathetic to her? That is an issue that cannot and should not be downplayed. But it is a challenge addressed both to the Senate and to the citizens of the Philippines.
While it may be the case that were she to count the number of senators she can rely on to acquit her, the vice president would have the numbers, it may still happen that those who sit in judgment decide to give life to the oath they swore as judges in the court of impeachment.
“In all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Vice President Sarah Zimmerman Duterte, now pending, I will do impartial justice...” An oath, after all, places he who swears under a solemn obligation. It calls on God as witness! To any man or woman who has a care for his or her immortal soul, that promise should not be something vapid.
But there are citizens who will not leave matters to the alliances and allegiances of the senators, who will not allow the shrill and hysterical voices of sycophancy to drown out rational discourse. There are at least three reported, reputable citizens’ groups. One is “Bantay Senado,” and there is “Bantay Impeachment” and the Citizens’ Jury. It is with the latter group that I am associated. It is very well possible that there are other groups — and that can only be a welcome development. It is promising, exciting even, that there are committed citizens who follow the proceedings, who listen to the evidence and who are willing to point out to fellow Filipinos what they observe, discern and conclude. The impeachment process, after all, is a mechanism of public accountability — and the public cannot be indifferent, nor should the process be whittled down to nothing more than a numbers game, where partisanship and personal connections trump evidence and truth.
Our group, The Citizens’ Jury, is made up of law deans and professors, canon law experts, moral theologians and political theorists and scientists. Procedural correctness concerns us, but we are also on the watch for the subterfuge by which procedure can be used to suppress truth. The mayhem that erupted shortly after the Senate made the fateful decision at the Estrada impeachment trial not to open the now-notorious “second envelope” — in effect, to suppress evidence — should be a reminder to the Senate that somehow, no matter that the Constitution makes them the sole judges in impeachment trials, there is residual power in the sovereign people. Significantly, when the Supreme Court was asked to pass upon Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s assumption of the presidency following what is now dubbed as “EDSA Dos,” the high court ruled it succession within the constitutional scheme of things, carefully distinguishing it from the EDSA of 1986 that it characterized as “extra-constitutional.” In both cases, the people made clear that if institutions fail them, the solemn words — “Sovereignty resides in the people and all governmental authority emanates from them” — were not put into the fundamental law as a flight of rhetoric or a literary flourish.
Together with other organized groups, the Citizens’ Jury will apply principles of law and evidence; the demands of fairness and rational process familiar to both Philippine law and canon law; as well as the demands of ethics and an informed conscience to how it follows what will happen at the Senate. The spirited conversation that we, its members, maintain in our group chat contributes to what we share when we go live or post statements. Not too long ago, someone took us to task for making statements in the pretense that we possess superior knowledge — “parang sila lang ang may alam!” We will not pretend that we do not know. Feigning ignorance is as ignominious as feigning knowledge. We are not deans and professors of law and related disciplines for nothing. But, like all citizens, we are in no position to make an imposition on other citizens. We can only contribute to what should be a continuing, spirited and informed conversation on the impeachment trial and related matters, such as the problem of Senate leadership.
We are watching — and we shall not be silent, nor shall we be silenced. We may not be judges in the impeachment trial, but we brandish the weapon of information, not to threaten but to give meaning to that ponderous term “sovereignty” that the Constitution proclaims rests with the people.