Capricious

The impeachment effort against Sara Duterte was born of politics. It will die of politics.

- ALEX MAGNO

One senator described the impeachment effort as functionally dismissed.

There is simply no material time for the 19th Congress to hold a half-respectable trial involving superfluous allegations. There is enough basis to question the adequacy of the process leading to the filing of the impeachment complaint. By the operation of its own rules, the Senate of the 20th Congress may simply relegate this distasteful matter to the dustbin of history.

The only question left at this point is how to dispose of this unwanted political trouble in the most graceful manner possible. Every hard-nosed politician knows in his bones that this impeachment effort has lost its political moment. It has become an unwanted political offspring that no one wants to father.

Except the leftist groups. They are constantly scavenging for issues that could make them matter. They need political chaos to thrive on.

The House of Representatives indulged in this impeachment exercise for reasons other than good governance. Toby Tiangco said as much. After working so hard to realign the 2025 budget to yield the pork the politicians want, the legislators needed the leverage to force the Executive branch to release the funds. They mistakenly chose impeachment as the method to win leverage. It is now clear that was a gross miscalculation.

What the House won was public disdain: first by so brazenly commandeering the budget and then by playing around with impeachment to extract the funds they appropriated for themselves. This only reinforced the perception this particular chamber is a criminal enterprise.