Do your homework

The lawyers’ objections diminished as the second week of the impeachment trial opened last Monday.

But the objections were replaced by certain senators’ gaslighting, grandstanding and unabashed primping for 2028.

Some of them seem to think all they have to do is sit through the trial, and toss at least one attendance question before the trial day is over.

As senator-judges in the first-ever impeachment trial of a vice president, they have a right to ask witnesses and lawyers clarificatory questions. But as senator-judges, they should also do their homework and read up on the issues upon which they are supposed to pass judgment.

At the very least, they should read up on the crimes imputed on Vice President Sara Duterte. Grave threat is defined under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code. It’s not an overly long article, even with amendments in the RPC. You don’t have to be a lawyer to finish reading it and understanding it.

The senator-judges can also exert effort to find out something about witnesses at the trial – at least the nature of their work and the scope of their authority. With only one witness per day, it’s not asking too much from people who are supposed to be lawmakers sitting as judges in a historic trial.

Instead so much time was wasted on questions asked by senator-judges, wherein the answers were clearly above the paygrade of Jeremy Lotoc when he headed the Cybercrime Division of the National Bureau of Investigation.

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The Q&A between the judges and witness was excruciating to watch as the senators dragged out the questioning, injected with extraneous commentary.

Even the opening prayers have been annoyingly long, laced with political commentary and snide remarks. Can’t they just stick to a basic prayer to a common Almighty, and keep it to a minute?

If this were a judicial court trial, VP Sara would be guaranteed an acquittal, due to inordinate delay – now a sure-fire excuse for courts to drop plunder and ill-gotten wealth cases against those who can afford the best justice that money can buy. The delaying tactics are in fact done by the party that later seeks the dismissal due to inordinate delay.

In the impeachment, the trial at its current pace could drag on all the way to the filing of certificates of candidacy next year for the 2028 race, when the VP is expected to seek the presidency.

Senators can’t seem to care less about the pace, focusing instead on preening for multimedia as they compete with the prosecution and defense lawyers for time to grill witnesses.

When some of them ask questions, it’s as if their message is mainly, “Look, ma, I’m a senator-judge!”

Several seem blissfully unaware that they’re passing judgment not on a criminal case, but on the fitness for office of the Vice President.

When senator-judges have nothing important to say, they might want to consider that silence can be golden.

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In the first four days of discussing the grave threats case, the only new thing unearthed has been the VP camp’s claim of a so-called Oplan Romanov – the alleged administration plot to kill the Dutertes.

Since Sara Duterte became VP, the first time the massacre of Russia’s ruling Romanov family was brought up was at a rally in Davao in 2024. But it was raised by the Dutertes’ 2028 Plan B, the VP’s brother Sebastian, who warned that the Marcos-Romualdez clan could suffer the fate of the last Russian czar and his family.

No formal complaint was filed by anyone threatened by Oplan Romanov. The NBI, mandated to investigate motu proprio all threats to the nation’s top five officials, reportedly reached out to VP Sara’s camp after she claimed in her online rant that there was a threat to her life, but failed to get cooperation.

Just establishing this context in her conditional threat to have BBM et al killed could last all the way to Christmas. The trial, already politically polarized, has become overjudicialized. If boring everyone to death is a strategy to make the public lose interest and no longer care whether the VP is convicted or not, it’s working.

The trial could drag on further if witnesses beg off from appearing because they are in urgent need of an original Thai massage.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano was correct in raising concern about NBI chief Melvin Matibag seeking a rescheduling of his testimony so he can attend a law enforcement symposium in Thai capital Bangkok. It could set a precedent for other witnesses from the government, Cayetano pointed out. But the Senate approved Matibag’s request.

Maybe Matibag is just trying to follow in the footsteps of his boss BBM, who has resumed globetrotting amid high fuel costs and galloping inflation, grabbing any excuse to travel first class at taxpayers’ expense. An “official” visit, folks, means we foot the bill.

Or maybe Matibag thinks his predecessor Jaime Santiago is better placed to testify. Santiago was the NBI chief when those motu proprio probes were launched on the grave threats. Being a former trial court judge, prosecutor and cop, Santiago may also be able to cut through the political gobbledygook in the “clarificatory” questioning.

Political gobbledygook has become the norm in regular legislative work, but this is an impeachment trial. Senator-judges should do justice to their role. Those Oxford crimson robes are not just fashion statements.

Witnesses are prepped for their testimonies. The bar for preparedness should be set as high for senator-judges. With a basic pay of P300,000 a month, they should do their homework. They should at least be prepped by their highly paid aides for the agenda of the day, which both the prosecution and defense have laid out.

Congress has one of the fattest bureaucracies. Presumably, senators have on their tax-funded staff not just their relatives and glutathione drip experts, but also lawyers knowledgeable about the Revised Penal Code and the Constitution.

When you’re tasked to pass judgment, you have to know what you’re judging.