Delicadeza, anyone?

An old Filipino word delicadeza is a borrowed Spanish word referring to a sense of propriety, moral integrity, discretion and decency. We inherited it from the mother tongue of our Spanish colonizers who stayed in the Philippines for 333 years or so. Delicadeza sort of acts as one’s inner moral compass – knowing when to step back, refuse undue favors or maintain proper conduct even when no one is watching.

In politics and work, delicadeza can mean stepping down or inhibiting oneself from a situation out of a sense of propriety or to avoid a conflict of interest.

Sad to say, we use the word mostly to note its absence, especially if the politicians are the ones invoking delicadeza.

A unilateral public declaration made last week by Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero stirred quite a hornets’ nest, so to speak. Off the cuff, Escudero announced nonchalantly that he would decline any nomination or offer to be the next vice president of the Philippines. That is, should Vice President Sara Duterte be convicted and removed from office at the end of the on-going Senate impeachment trial against her.

Escudero’s avowal would not have merited any attention more than it deserved if he is not the presiding officer of the impeachment court. He is one of the remaining 21 out of 24 senator-judges who will decide the fate of VP Sara at the end of the impeachment trial. It will come sooner, not later, before the end of this year.

“I will not accept it because of a simple reason. Conflict of interest. We were the ones who decided. That does not seem right,” Escudero told an interviewer in his podcast. He went on to argue that it is highly inappropriate for a senator-judge to take the second highest seat of elected post in our country being held by the impeachable official they just ousted.

Escudero hastily doused cold water on possible speculations that a firm offer to succeed VP Sara was already made to him. He clarified he was merely making this preemptive refusal as a strict personal conviction.

In fairness though, Escudero already first said this while he was still the Senate president in February 2025 – when he first sat as the presiding officer then of the impeachment court – but did not convene “forthwith” the impeachment trial on VP Sara. Fortunately for Escudero, the Supreme Court (SC) subsequently trashed that first impeachment attempt against VP Sara by the 19th Congress for violating, among other things, the one-year bar on the filing of impeachment complaints.

Later, Escudero was ousted as Senate chief on Sept. 8 that same year by 15-9 votes of the Senate of the 20th Congress. Thankfully, Escudero has not budged from his previous “personal conviction” against any offer to succeed VP Sara.

Senate minority leader Alan Peter Cayetano welcomed Escudero’s public commitment and invited his fellow senator-judges to all do the same thing. But not all the senators were amused. Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian cited it is improper, if not presumptuous, of them to do so when the outcome of the impeachment trial of VP Sara is not certain yet.

On the part of senior deputy majority leader Sen. JV Ejercito, the re-electionist senator called it as “premature” to make such announcements. To be sure, a Senate that speculates about succession in the middle of a trial looks like a Senate that has already made up its mind. Cayetano admitted that was his first reaction, too. It even reignited the word war between Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and Cayetano, who did not invent this conflict.

If it is improper to talk about the succession while judging, pray tell, how much worse is it to carry a stake in it into the voting? The pledge does not raise the subject. It puts it to rest. A senator who has ruled himself out has nothing left to be premature about.

It is written under our country’s Constitution, Article VII, Section 9 that tells the President to fill a vacancy in the Office of the Vice President from among the members of Congress, either from the Senate or from the House of Representatives, and confirmed by both chambers.

The jury and the pool of successors are in the same room. The clause has been used exactly once when then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plucked Lakas-CMD partymate Sen.Teofisto Guingona Jr. in 2001. Or this was after former president Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trial collapsed without a verdict and the question of who comes next was settled in the EDSA 2.0 that took place in January 2001.

Escudero is now presiding officer anew over the impeachment court after being elected in July this year by majority vote of 12-8 over the objections of Cayetano and the minority. It was Escudero’s surprise appearance on the Senate floor last June 3 that gave the new majority its quorum and Cayetano lost the Senate presidency.

Refusing an office nobody has offered costs nothing today. The cynics will just call it an empty gesture. They have it backwards. It is the only moment the gesture is possible. A refusal after the verdict is cheap talk. A refusal before the senator-judge votes at the impeachment trial is a decision he has to live with.

For all his personal character flaws, Cayetano made a related point that got lost in the noise – the reason for declining matters. A senator may sincerely prefer his present job this week and feel differently once the offer is real and the “kumpares” start whispering “Ikaw na!” (It’s you.)

No senator-judge is obliged to make the pledge. All of them, however, will now be asked. Declining does not make a senator guilty of ambition. It does invite the public to wonder why a commitment that costs nothing is so hard to make. Getting offended by the question, as several senators have been, does not answer it.

Their answer will tell us how much delicadeza is left in the Senate, if there is any. Delicadeza, anyone?