It looks to me like the impeachment case against Sara Duterte is doomed. When you have a Senate that is not willing to prosecute a high government official accused of many things, including corruption, the process, as laid down by the 1987 Constitution, is doomed. That Constitution was not drafted by a constitutional convention and so suffers from certain infirmities, including the provision on impeachment.
I have always believed that 1987 was a good year for the drafting of a constitution because progressive and pro-people democratic ideas were still floating around following the 1986 Edsa People Power Uprising and the toppling of the hated dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. But the democratic pendulum had apparently swung too far to the other side that we are now suffering from the populist provisions of the Constitution drafted in 1987.
The 1935 Constitution that the 1987 version replaced did have infirmities but at least it did not destroy the Senate. The choice of candidates for senators then was such that being popular was not the sole and main criterion, so much so that only a few showbiz-type personalities became senators. So we long for those days when a Claro Recto, a Jovito Salonga, a Lorenzo Tañada and even an Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and a Miriam Defensor-Santiago populated the Philippine Senate.
How did a Robin Padilla, a Lito Lapid, etc. become senators? Or to put it in another way, how could people have elected senators who were more loyal to their patrons than to the Filipino people. High government officials who are popular can no longer be impeached because senators now fear that impeaching them would in the end make them (the senators) unelectable. More than that, high government officials nowadays have become so confident in their popularity that they no longer fear any backlash, like the people holding protest actions including an uprising.
In the last presidential elections, the so-called Marcos loyalists, who were marginalized by the 1986 Edsa uprising, wisely forged a partnership with the so-called diehard Duterte supporters, who were loyal to former President Rodrigo Duterte, to form a popular movement that allowed the dictator’s son, Bongbong Marcos, to become president and Duterte’s daughter Sara to become vice president. The movement, called “Uniteam,” was so weighed down by political ambition it eventually splintered.
What made the Uniteam unique was that it came about just after the creation of a new technology that empowered individuals over government institutions. That new technology prompted the formation of a new medium called social media that overpowered traditional media. The Uniteam rode on the social media bandwagon that allowed it to spread a narrative that made the Marcoses and the Dutertes supreme.
But social media can also do the opposite. Sara, for example, may not be impeached but can she control the narrative when she runs for president in 2028? As it is now, it’s not only impeachment that can expose a government official’s corrupt ways. Social media can, too.