Plan B

No one dares predict how the Supreme Court, with its changing membership, might vote on any issue.

But people can speculate on the impact of its rulings. And the latest, on the Senate impeachment court’s voting by a simple majority to allow a lower number to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, has generated a common speculation: the VP is headed for conviction, and permanent disqualification from public office.

This means she will be DQ’d from the 2028 elections, where she has already declared her intent to run for president.

Her camp will probably dismiss this as wishful thinking, and may still be preparing her own challenge before the SC in case she is convicted. The SC, after all, said the petitions to overturn the Senate court’s decision to change the voting rules to convict were premature and the petitioners were not the aggrieved party.

But if the aggrieved party the VP would be convicted and permanently DQ’d from public office, and she challenges it before the SC, citing grave abuse of discretion on the part of those nasty senators, would the high court – whose members are impeachable officials – meddle in a decision of the impeachment court?

As three retired chief justices serving as amici curiae pointed out, the Constitution grants the Senate exclusive jurisdiction over impeachment trials. Any action that would overturn a final ruling of the impeachment court could set a dangerous precedent that could shield SC members from ouster by impeachment.

And if for this reason, the Senate decides to defy the SC on such a ruling, we will have a constitutional crisis.

The betting is that the SC doesn’t have an appetite for such a confrontation, and will keep its hands off a final judgment by the Senate impeachment court.

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Based on the revised Senate court rules, four senators are currently ineligible to participate in the trial and pass judgment on the VP. With a denominator of 20, the two-thirds threshold goes down to 14 from the 16 that presiding officer Francis Escudero had announced at the start of the trial.

At least two other senators, however, may soon be slapped with plunder or other non-bailable criminal cases such as malversation. If this happens, the vote denominator to convict goes down further to 18, and the two-thirds threshold becomes 12.

Going by the interjections of the senators, it looks like the 12 votes are already certain. At this point, even the 14 is looking attainable.

And now, with the SC unanimously refusing to issue a restraining order or a return to the status quo when Escudero ruled that 16 votes are required, Sara Duterte looks headed for conviction.

If criminal cases are pursued against her when she is unseated as VP, she might even be headed for jail. Those serious accusations hurled against her and ex-House speaker Lord Allan Velasco by his former security officer Rodulfo Gracioso Jr. can warrant a plunder indictment. And unless (to borrow a term from Ombudsman Boying Remulla) maareglo with the courts, she could be denied bail.

It’s significant that the SC acted swiftly on the petitions, within just a week. This also indicates its hands-off stance (at this point) on the impeachment trial, which jibes with the opinions of the three former chief justices who served as amici curiae.

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With VP Sara looking like she’s about to lose her post and be DQ’d from the 2028 race, attention has turned to her clan’s reported Plan B, her younger brother Sebastian.

Baste, who took over as Davao City mayor because their father who won the seat in 2025 had been bundled off to The Hague, faced the Senate impeachment court as a hostile witness last Tuesday.

He was cool and businesslike, showing no hostility at prosecutors and known anti-Duterte senators. Also, his hairstyle and tattoos must have appealed to the youths.

Palace press officer Claire Castro, a lawyer, expressed a common observation, that Mayor Baste appeared to have thrown VP Sara under the bus. This was when he said he would not have approved all those contracts the Davao City government awarded to GenCorp Industries had he known that his sister had an interest in the company whose majority owner, Jaime Tan Cruz, is a close friend of their father. The statement unwittingly acknowledged the questionable aspect of the contracts.

But while it might be damning for his sister, claiming to be unaware that the VP herself included GenCorp in her official asset statement could spare Mayor Baste from an indictment for conflict of interest.

Surveys show that the Duterte brand remains strong especially in vote-rich Mindanao, although the VP’s numbers have been slipping. If she is neutralized through impeachment and criminal cases, the clan can field another Duterte in 2028.

Mayor Baste turns 40 – the minimum age for a presidential candidate – in November 2027. Once seen as the carefree member of the family, he has lately been projecting the tough persona associated with the Duterte brand.

None of the children, however, has the natural charm and wicked sense of humor that allowed their father to promise mass killings during his campaign, and win the presidency by a landslide.

Returning to power is an existential necessity for the Dutertes. Just as neutralizing them has become an existential necessity for the Marcoses.

If VP Sara survives the impeachment trial, she will be unbeatable for 2028. There will be no need for her clan’s Plan B.

It will then be the Marcoses who must implement their Plan B for survival.