All about impeachment
Three things about impeachment: one, it is a political process, including even the trial; two, it is enshrined in the constitution; and three, it is a game of numbers.
The constitution is clear about what constitutes a ground for impeachment: culpable violation of that fundamental law, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of the public trust.
The constitution also provides that an impeachment shall originate in the House which, when approved by the requisite number of members, shall forward the so-called articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial and judgment. The signature of at least one congressman, either as complainant or endorser, is necessary to initiate the impeachment process.
The purpose of impeachment is to remove the impeachable official: the president, vice president, justices of the Supreme Court, members of the constitutional commissions and the Ombudsman. Removal from office was what Rep. Gary Alejano had in mind when he filed the impeachment complaint against President Duterte last week. It said so in his complaint.
Duterte’s allies are understandably upset, claiming that Alejano and his cabal of dissidents are out to destabilize the Duterte government. Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez dismissed the complaint as an exercise in stupidity.
If in calling the act stupid Alvarez was saying that it was doomed to fail, the Speaker was right on the money. Alejano should consider himself lucky if his complaint passes first base, in this case the House committee on justice.
The current (seventeenth) Congress has 292 members, counting the party-list representatives. Under the constitution, Alejano’s complaint must bear the conformity of at least one third of that number in order to impeach the president and elevate the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
The House is currently ruled by a super majority that in so many instances, including the prosecution of Sen. Leila de Lima and the reinstatement of the death penalty in the country’s justice system, had proven itself impregnable. Considering how ruthlessly Alvarez cracks the whip on recalcitrants, I doubt if anyone in the House coalition would dare break away and cast his lot with Alejano.
This is not saying that the congressmen may be herded like goats by their leaders. Many of them may actually vote according to their conscience and reject the impeachment attempt because they honestly believe it is bad for the country.
Thus, everything considered, Alejano would be lucky if at the end of the day he would have enough impeachment allies to fill a Volkswagen Beetle.
But to condemn Alejano for doing something that the constitution allows him to is misplaced. And to implicate, as someone did, Vice President Leni Robredo in an alleged destabilization plot without offering any proof other than that she would benefit from Duterte’s impeachment is to shoot from the anus (because shooting from the hip takes at least a hint of careful consideration).