Aborted Impeachment

The 15-man Supreme Court (SC) voted unanimously to junk the fourth impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte.

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The SC, headed by Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, found it unconstitutional and that the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 20th Congress have no jurisdiction to proceed with the impeachment trial of VP Sara.

It took the SC more than four months to act on two petitions to stop the impeachment bid vs VP Sara. In a notice dated July 8, the SC en banc required both the Senate and the House to respond to 11 specific questions and submit them within 10 days without extension.

Last Friday (July 25), the SC has mightily spoken. With no participation from two justices, unanimity of 13-0-2 votes came out. Boom! The impeachment VP Sara case was busted to smithereens.

The High Court acted with uncanny dispatch. In just a week's time, the 97-page decision penned by Justice Marvic Leonen was handed down. Such speed is rarely seen from the highest court of the land, where loads of backlogged cases take years to be resolved.

The so-called "gods of Faura" outdid themselves.

Hopefully, this will set the new trend by which the SC resolves all other pending cases before them—with the same speed but dispensed with equal justice to all.

The High Court ruling came out three days before President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (PBBM) delivers today his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the ceremonial joint opening of sessions of the 20th Congress. Incidentally, this will also be the fourth SONA of PBBM in the remaining three years of his term in office.

As the chief interpreter of the laws of the land and the Constitution, the SC asserted itself as the third co-equal branch of Congress. The others are Congress as the lawmaking body and the Executive department to execute or implement the laws of the land.