ASEANEWS HEADLINE-VP IMPEACHMENT | MANILA: Marcos: Enrile right on INC rally, but Duterte impeachment timing is off

.

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed with Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile that the country would face a “very detrimental precedent” if the rule of law was not followed in the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte, but he said that the timing of the move was “very poor” amid the flurry of preparations for the 2025 midterm elections.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile had questioned the “logic implicit” in the Jan. 13 “National Rally for Peace” organized by Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) that opposed moves to impeach Duterte.

The 100-year-old former Senate President, popularly called JPE, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that following the influential sect’s reasoning, Filipinos would have to sacrifice the rule of law without exacting accountability for alleged misdeeds by officials.

“You know, JPE is one of our best legal thinkers in the country,” Mr. Marcos said in an interview during a visit to Burauen, Leyte, on Friday. “And he is right. There is a consequence to … there will be a precedent, and it will be very problematic.”

‘Let’s leave it to House’

Enrile had asked whether the INC could amend the 1987 Constitution or suspend its provisions, and if the public was prepared to “discard or sacrifice the value of rule of law” for a person or a group of persons.

.

“As a nation and a state, we will incur a very detrimental precedent if we follow the logic implicit in the INC rally that they mounted. Are we prepared and ready to face the long-term consequences of that INC move?” he said.

The President pointed out that Congress was mandated under the Constitution to act on the impeachment complaints and that both the House of Representatives and the Senate don’t have a choice but to follow the impeachment process once it is in motion.

“I don’t think that now is the time to go through that,” he said. “So, let’s leave it to the House for now. Besides, as a practical matter, we’re already about to enter the campaign period.”

“There will be no more congressmen or senators because they will already be campaigning. We can’t reach a quorum. So as a practical matter, the timing is very poor,” he said.

Time left to act

Under Congress’ legislative calendar, both the House and the Senate will hold sessions until Feb. 7 and take a break from Feb. 8 to June 1.

Congress will resume sessions on June 2 – three weeks after the May 12 midterm elections.

This means that the House has until Feb. 7 – or 15 working days – to act on the impeachment complaints, which have been verified so far but have not been forwarded to the House rules committee.

Under the Constitution, the Senate acts as the impeachment court that will rule to convict or acquit the official impeached by the House.

Even before the first impeachment complaint was filed in November last year, Mr. Marcos told his allies in Congress not to pursue plans to impeach the Vice President, his erstwhile ally, because she was “unimportant” in the larger scheme of things.

He said that the impeachment proceedings would not benefit any Filipino and would just be a waste of time, distracting lawmakers from doing their jobs.

Open hostility

INC leaders took him at his word, binding him to his pronouncement, and announced a rally to “support” his call not to go ahead with the impeachment of Duterte.

The INC, known for bloc voting, supported the Marcos-Duterte “Uniteam” which swept the 2022 presidential election.

The falling out between the country’s two highest officials began in 2023 when pro-Marcos lawmakers and minority representatives began questioning Duterte’s huge confidential funds despite not being directly involved in national security or law enforcement.

The open break came when Duterte quit as education secretary in July last year. She became openly hostile to the President, calling him a liar and a thief in a profanity-laced tirade during an online press briefing where she disclosed that she had arranged for the assassination of the President, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez if she died in an alleged plot to kill her.

The INC’s Jan. 13 rallies attracted over 1.8 million INC members across the country. INC leaders called on lawmakers to address major problems like the high food prices, lack of jobs and poverty, and not to engage in politicking such as impeaching the Vice President.

Not meant to imprison

Enrile explained that impeachment was “just a constitutional legal process” to remove an official from office if found culpable based on evidence and was not meant to send that official to prison.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court and constitutional commissions, and the Ombudsman are impeachable public officers.

The three impeachment complaints accused Duterte of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, bribery and other high crimes.

The complaints alleged that Duterte misused hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

Harmful to country

Enrile said that following the implied reasoning of the influential religious sect – which is not to let due process take its course in the impeachment complaints against Duterte for the sake of peace and unity – would be harmful to the country.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Thursday said the President has “always nurtured a culture of open ventilation of ideas” among Cabinet members, and that it was this environment that prompted Enrile to speak up.

“While his thoughts may carry weight and are always valued, his is one of many that the President seriously considers. Nonetheless, the President’s stand on the issue concerned remains unchanged,” Bersamin said.

.

Ads by: Memento Maxima Digital Marketing @[email protected] SPACE RESERVE FOR ADVERTISEMENT