Sara Duterte should resign forthwith

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

Sara Z. Duterte should resign as vice president. Forthwith. Immediately. Now. That is the only solution I see from the political and constitutional quagmire that has engulfed the two major branches of our government — the legislature, or the House of Representatives (HOR) and the Senate, and the judiciary, specifically, the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Civil society has been galvanized into action. It sees the Supreme Court and the Senate enabling Sara Duterte to get away — literally — with murder and plunder of the most outrageous kind. Aside from saving Sara's skin, the Supreme Court has also made nearly impossible all future impeachment initiatives by imposing so-called seven requirements of due process.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno argues that under the Constitution, impeachment is sui generis. One of a kind. It is political and at the same time a criminal proceeding. Political is the House of Representatives having the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment. Criminal is the trial by the Senate.

A vote of one-third of the entire House membership, without need for hearing and trial, is enough to impeach an official. Impeachable officials are the president, the vice president, the Supreme Court justices, the ombudsman and the members of the constitutional commissions like the Comelec, Commission on Audit and the Civil Service Commission. The guilty is removed from office by two-thirds vote or 16 of 24 senators of the Senate acting as the Impeachment Court. The crimes include: culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust.