‘Sara has momentum’: how Philippine VP won round 1 of impeachment row

The deliberation process on whether to impeach the vice-president has been thrown back to the Lower House for consideration

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio has won round one of her impeachment battle after her allies in the Senate tossed back the bid to the Lower House on claims it was “defective” and “unconstitutional”.

The unprecedented move on Tuesday, which was settled by a vote of 18-5, has triggered an intense debate online about the senators’ actions and Duterte-Carpio’s political future.

“I think, for now, Sara has momentum even if the president still has three years left in his term of office,” political risk analyst Rolando Llamas told This Week in Asia, referring to the country’s leader, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr.

There has been widespread speculation that Duterte-Carpio is expected to contest the 2028 presidential election, and her ally, Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, told his colleagues on Tuesday that the impeachment trial was meant to derail that.

But whether she could clinch the presidency even if she were to escape impeachment would depend on her support from youth and millennial voters, with these groups seen as more demanding of accountability from officials, according to Llamas.

This demographic enabled the Akbayan party list group to unexpectedly win the recent Senate midterm elections, with Francis Pangilinan and Bam Aquino, two opposition senators who are not allied with either the Duterte family or Marcos Jnr, coming into office, according to Llamas.

Akbayan is one of the groups that has pressured the Senate to start an impeachment trial against Duterte-Carpio.

Senate deputy minority floor leader Risa Hontiveros, who is a senior leader of Akbayan, was among the five senators who tried to stop the move by the Dutertes’ allies – Senators Dela Rosa, Imee Marcos, Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Tolentino and Christopher “Bong” Go – from blocking the trial.

The Senate’s voting outcome over Duterte-Carpio’s impeachment indicated that Marcos “is on the verge of being an early lame duck if not already one” and signalled that he would face significant challenges to amend legislation even if he had the strong support of the House of Representatives, Llamas said.

‘Old-fashioned self-interest’

Barry Gutierrez, a criminal law professor at the University of the Philippines, said “old-fashioned self-interest” was what drove the actions of the 18 senators who did not support the impeachment trial against Duterte-Carpio.

“It’s clear that most of them want to avoid an impeachment trial. The obvious allies of VP Sara Duterte want to protect her from the potentially damaging revelations that may arise during a trial,” Gutierrez said.

“Others don’t want to be put in a position where they have to choose a side in the ongoing conflict between the Marcos and Duterte camps. They would rather fence-sit until it’s nearer to 2028,” he added.

While Duterte-Carpio had a core group of allies in the Senate, the others were “hedging their bets” against a possible return of her father to the presidency in 2028, Gutierrez told This Week in Asia.

The Marcos Jnr administration’s poor showing in the midterm elections has given the Duterte clan some momentum after being on the defensive for a period of time, according to Gutierrez, referring to the pro-Marcos Jnr candidates winning only five seats.

To compound Marcos Jnr’s woes, his sister and senator incumbent Imee and Camille Villar, daughter of one of the Philippines’ richest tycoons Manuel Villar and Senator Cynthia Villar, were originally on his side but both flipped to the Dutertes at the last minute and won in the elections.

Initially, the pro-Duterte senators tried to block the convening of the impeachment court.

Senate President Francis Escudero broke the impasse by swearing himself in on Monday as the presiding judge. The next day, other senators also agreed to be sworn in as senator-judges.

Dela Rosa then moved to dismiss the Articles of Impeachment submitted by the House of Representatives on February 5 on the grounds that the House failed to follow the procedures set by the 1987 constitution.

When Dela Rosa did not get enough support for the move, Cayetano suggested that the Articles be pushed back to the House for it to certify that the congressmen did not violate the 1987 constitution when they impeached Duterte-Carpio and to confirm that the lawmakers were still interested in pursuing the impeachment trial.

On Wednesday, the Senate and the House adjourned without resolving the issue. The House announced it was deferring its acceptance of the Articles of Impeachment from the Senate. But the House adopted a resolution stating that its impeachment proceedings were “fully compliant” with the 1987 constitution.

Gutierrez said “the most obvious legal route” for those objecting to the convening of the impeachment process was to petition the matter before the Supreme Court.

The fight for truth and accountability continuesLeila de Lima, congresswoman-elect

Llamas expressed doubts that the Supreme Court would respond to any such petition and intervene in the battle between the two houses. He pointed out that Duterte-Carpio moved a similar petition with the High Court in February, but the Supreme Court had not acted on it.

Congresswoman-elect Leila de Lima lambasted the senators over the “travesty and ignominy” of their votes. “This is not over. The fight for truth and accountability continues,” she warned.

The Management Association of the Philippines, whose members are among the top CEOs in the country, also issued a statement on Wednesday to express concern over the senators’ actions.

It said: “We believe that the Senate has a constitutional duty to conduct, without any delay or disruption, the impeachment trial of Vice-President Sara Duterte. Abandoning this mandate undermines the integrity of our democratic processes.”