"Over-judicializing" the impeachment process

By a vote of 19-4-1, the Senate allowed legalese to win over high moral principles, consented to make procedures prevail over substance, and gave its imprimatur to the letter of the law winning over the spirit of the Constitution.

- Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez

The Philippine Senate has surrendered the principle of separation of powers and the doctrine of checks and balances to the primacy of judicial review. The Supreme Court, contrary to the landmark case of Angara versus Electoral Tribunal, has asserted its supremacy over Congress, and the Senate has given its consent to such a monumental and historical reversal of well-entrenched doctrinal case law.

The Senate and the Supreme Court, according to the House of Representatives, have transformed a political process into a set of judicial procedures. Justice Mario Victor F. Leonen, the senior associate justice of the highest court of the land, and former dean of the UP College of Law, was said to have committed a "judicial overreach" when he enumerated procedural steps which include those not in the Constitution itself.