VP Impeachment 2.0

Unlike his predecessor, the new Senate chief has promised to act “forthwith” on any impeachment complaint transmitted to the chamber by the House of Representatives.

This presumes that the impeachment will reach the transmittal stage.

A second attempt to remove Vice President Sara Duterte by impeachment is now widely expected next month. The VP herself knows it and says her camp is preparing for it.

But whether VP Impeachment 2.0 will prosper is a big if.

President Marcos has conveyed his change of heart on the issue, through his press officer, who indicated that he is no longer opposed to the impeachment and that – as in the flood control mess – anyone accountable for corruption must be held to account.

How much weight BBM’s new position carries remains to be seen.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who was among the senators who voted to archive the Articles of Impeachment during the 19th Congress, points out that there are now more openly pro-Duterte senators, thanks to the Alyansa debacle in the 2025 elections.

At the House, probers count at least 67 “cong-tractors,” with more who could one day be implicated in anomalous flood control and other infrastructure projects as well as thievery in the national budget.

Gatchalian told The STAR’s “Truth on the Line” last Tuesday that the crackdown on public works corruption is affecting congressional sentiment toward both President Marcos and the removal by impeachment of his constitutional successor.

There’s also that ruling of the Supreme Court in connection with the VP’s impeachment by the 19th Congress. The unanimous ruling should warrant the SC justices’ impeachment for unilaterally rewriting the Constitution – except they have, through their ruling based partly on wrong information, made their impeachment nearly impossible.

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There’s a motion for reconsideration (MR) of the ruling, with arguments that boil down to urging the SC justices: mahiya naman kayo and reverse yourself. And resolve the MR before Feb. 5, the end of the one-year bar set by the SC on the filing of another impeachment complaint against the VP.

If the SC reverses its ruling, the Senate can simply resurrect from its archives the original Articles of Impeachment. But will there be enough votes for this?

Also, the MR is seemingly being treated with the usual lack of urgency by the high tribunal. A reversal will have to admit that nearly impeached SC Associate Justice Marvic Leonen based his ponente partly on a wrong premise.

In the absence of a resolution of the MR, come Feb. 6, the House can tackle new impeachment complaints that are expected to be filed against the VP. Even without a final decision, legal experts say lawmakers will most likely bow to the new impeachment rules set by the SC in its self-serving ruling.

Apart from all the new judicially imposed roadblocks to impeaching anyone, Gatchalian noted that lawmakers now have their minds on the 2028 general elections, in which VP Sara remains the presidential frontrunner in early surveys.

But he said lawmakers could be swayed to vote for impeachment (and subsequent removal, if the case hurdles the Senate) if the proof of corruption is so convincing that public outrage is guaranteed against those who ignore the evidence.

And public outrage can still propel the Senate impeachment trial toward a conviction.

The outrage took a break during the holidays. With no big fish having an unhappy Christmas and the season of cheer now over, with Christmas bonuses spent and all the negative year-end assessments accumulating, public outrage is again bubbling up to the surface.

Instead of the big fish landing behind bars before Christmas, it looks like the holiday break (for which congressmen got P2 million each in spending allowance) was used to allow the thieves to put their illegal wealth beyond the reach of Philippine authorities.

There are reports that some of the “cong-tractors” also did a Zaldy Co and left the country during their paid holiday break.

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The Independent Commission for Infrastructure blew its chance to be relevant when it promised to livestream its proceedings, and then reduced it to a photo op before holding its probe behind closed doors as usual. Today, the ICI is in the ICU and looks headed for the morgue.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla also disappeared during the holidays. He has since become more circumspect in his pronouncements, admitting that he learned his lesson from the “no merry Christmas” reality check.

This tosses the ball back to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, where chair Panfilo Lacson has promised renewed fireworks at the next flood control hearing that is certain to again stoke public outrage.

These days the Catholic Church is also scaling up, preaching against corruption even during popular religious gatherings such as the just concluded Traslacion and the ongoing celebrations of the Feast of the Sto. Niño.

The original impeachment effort was clouded by the entirely valid accusation of the Duterte camp that it was being engineered by then speaker Martin Romualdez in furtherance of his dream of becoming president in 2028.

There were also concerns – and not just among the DDS – that in case VP Sara would be ousted by impeachment, Romualdez would be picked as her replacement by BBM, to raise his favorite cousin’s profile and dismal ratings.

For VP Impeachment 2.0, it may help that there’s a new Speaker, and Bodjie Dy is not seen as a presidential contender.

It’s all about accountability, according to those who have announced plans to continue pursuing VP Sara for her use of confidential funds and her video rant channeling cinema’s killer Chucky doll.

Still, the renewed effort will also continue to be seen as part of the ongoing war of attrition between the Marcos-Romualdez and Duterte clans.

And there are people who wouldn’t mind if the warring clans would just annihilate each other, with no one able to stage a comeback.