THE SENATE has given Vice President Sara Duterte some sort of a breather by not immediately convening as a trial court to hear the articles of impeachment leveled against her by the House of Representatives.
This affords substantial time to prepare her answer, much more than the limited period stipulated in the Senate rules on impeachment.
It also gives her some room to assess whether she can undergo the rigors of a public trial and risk a tattered public image, or jump the gun and simply resign the vice presidency.
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Should VP Sara risk trial and gets convicted she will be removed from office and barred from holding any other position in government.
Conviction by an impeachment court is permanent.
The Constitution does not allow the President to pardon an impeached public official convicted by the Senate.
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Will the Senate continue to hear the impeachment case against Sara should she decide to resign the vice presidency before trial against her commences?
In two previous cases the Senate froze the ball and did not proceed to trial after the respondents’ resignation from office.
These are the cases of former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and former Commission on Elections chairperson Andres Bautista who resigned their offices, and were spared the penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
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The trial against former president Joseph Estrada was aborted after he resigned in the face of people power demonstrations in EDSA. The Supreme Court eventually declared him eligible to run again. He won as Mayor of Manila.
The objective of an impeachment trial is to determine whether the respondent should be removed from office. Resignation will moot this objective.
Rep. Jinky Luistro, however, believes that trial may still continue despite the resignation of the vice president because the consequence of impeachment is not only removal from office but also unfitness to hold public office in the future. This will kill Sara’s candidacy in 2028.
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Nonetheless, the senators may like the prospect of getting released from impeachment duty upon the vice president’s resignation from office. Perpetual disqualification remains an option as an accessory penalty to the criminal case of plunder, in case one is eventually filed.
Sara could have obviated all of this had she run for Mayor of Davao City. She could then fortify her family’s slipping grip over their local fiefdom while making a tactical retreat from the then simmering issues on confidential funds.
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Will she risk it, then?
An impeachment trial will defeat bank secrecy laws and expose bank accounts that are said to contain payola payments from questionable sources.
The transactions in these accounts are alleged to be manifestly beyond the nominal amounts listed in the Vice President’s statement of assets liabilities and net worth (SALN). Worse, these accounts are held jointly with her father, the former president, and might show hidden wealth that can be the basis for another plunder charge.
A full-blown trial can obliterate Sara’s political career./PN
