Word of the week is “witch-hunt.”
On Tuesday, July 8, 2025, Senator Migz Zubiri likened the impending trial in the Senate of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte to witch-hunt.
“I think that it is a witch-hunt because they want to remove her from public service; para ‘yung iba makaupo [so that others may take her place]. At ‘yung iba ay mawawalan ng kandidato na kalaban pagdating sa halalan ng 2028 (and the others would lose rivals in the elections of 2028), Zubiri opined.
In contemporary English, says Wikipedia, “witch-hunt” metaphorically means an investigation usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty and so on, but with the real purpose of harming opponents. It can also involve elements of moral panic as well as mass hysteria.
In the 9th to 14th centuries, especially in Europe, people hunted for witches or people who practiced witchcraft, had demonic influence on humans and were blamed for all kinds of evil and scourge. After a sham trial, the so-called witches were burned to death.
Zubiri is both right and wrong. Right because an impeachment trial is political in nature. It is an exercise in discovery of damning evidence to give an excuse for the 24 senator-judges to either acquit (if they like Sara) and convict her (if they dislike her). The premise is that the defendant is guilty even before she is declared innocent. The trial thus degenerates into a witch-hunt.
Presumption of guilt was the burden of previous impeachment defendants. The public perceived them to be on the wrong side of history.
In 2001, President Joseph Estrada was convinced he did nothing wrong despite being accused of receiving gambling bribes. No evidence existed to prove his guilt. The supposedly damning evidence, a second envelope, was a non-starter and that being the case, the defense refused to have it opened during Erap’s trial. The prosecution walked out; the trial was thrown into a turmoil. The Supreme Court declared the presidency vacant and Chief Justice Hilario Davide, the impeachment court presiding officer, swore into office Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as acting president.
In 2011, Chief Justice Renato Corona was convinced he did nothing wrong despite being accused of ill-gotten wealth of which there was no proof. President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III simply wanted him ousted for having engineered a November 2011 15-0 Supreme Court decision that the Cojuangco clan’s 6,400-hectare Hacienda Luisita belonged to its 6,000 farmers and therefore must be returned to them, plus the earnings while it was under Cojuangco “ownership” since 1957. During the trial, however, documents surfaced suddenly showing Corona had dollar deposits which deposits he did not declare in his annual Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net worth (SALN). It was a clear witch-hunt and the Senate Impeachment Court declared Corona guilty and ousted the SC chief. Reports later surfaced the senator-judges were “paid” P50 million each in pork money, with P100 million going for the most senior senator.
Zubiri is wrong for calling the impending Sara trial a witch-hunt. The prosecution has built a mountain of evidence to prove her guilty for seven offenses, namely, 1) conspiracy to kill President Marcos Jr., the First Lady and Speaker Martin Romualdez; 2) malversation of P612 million of people’s money, using fictitious receipts and bookkeeping entries; 3) bribery; 4) unexplained wealth; 5) extrajudicial killings; 6) sedition and insurrection and 7) bad behavior as Vice President.
The evidence includes videos of Sara admitting to contracting assassins, televised public statements, bogus receipts, confessions of hired killers, confessions of government people having received her bribes and tons of transcripts of House hearings about her shenanigans and misdeeds.
“How could an impeachment proceeding in our modern era be a witch-hunt?” protests presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile, whose intellect can easily the scare the daylights out of witches. Explains JPE:
“In a witch-hunt during the medieval period, there was no open, free, public trial. In a witch-hunt, there are no jurors, no prosecutors, no defense lawyers, no orderly presentation of evidence and witnesses. There were no cross-examinations. Moreover, there were no newspapers to report the daily proceeding, and there were no radios and no social media to inform the people of what was happening. More importantly, there were no public audiences watching. Witch-hunts were done in secret, in cloisters or in well-guarded chambers. There could never be any possible comparison between our present-day system of impeachment to witch-hunts during the medieval ages. Such a comparison is nothing more than a sheer effort to try to mislead the people.”
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GRAND TOURISM NIGHT. The Manila Overseas Press Club, Asia’s oldest and most prestigious press club, holds its “MOPC Grand Tourism Night” on Aug. 15, 2025, Friday, 6 to 9 p.m., at the New World Hotel grand ballroom, Makati. The First Lady, Louise Araneta Marcos (LAM), has agreed to be the guest of honor and speaker, with the nation’s leading CEOs in attendance.
The First Lady will give the handcrafted, Italy-made golden Bell of Excellence trophies to outstanding movers and shakers of tourism.
Tourism is a mainstay of the economy with P760-billion contribution to GDP, 55 million domestic airline travelers and seven million in annual projected foreign arrivals under the Ang Bagong Pilipinas administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Tourism is one of PBBM’s priority programs. After all, the Philippines is home to some of the world’s most breathtaking destinations. Filipinos are born to be warm, smiling and hospitable.
The MOPC Grand Tourism Awards recognize the doers and shakers in tourism. LAM’s presence lends elegance, glamor and enormous prestige to the event as well as luster to the awards, inspiring the awardees to ever higher goals of excellence and service.
Interested parties may call Dena, the MOPC Secretariat, 0920-204-9229.
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