Where is Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment headed to?
Some say it is headed down the drain. There are also others who suspect that the seeming deliberate delay in the trial is a political maneuver designed to attain the real objective of the impeachment move.
But which political group is aiming a particular agenda using the impeachment case against the Vice President as the vehicle for its attainment.
For now it looks like it is the camp of the Vice President that is getting the advantage with the delay of the trial. The VP’s camp is exploiting to the hilt the delay by creating scenarios that make the impeach proponents appear cowering in fear.
The VP’s group is also succeeding in having both the Senate and the House as well as the public come up with varying conclusion and opinion as to the motive of the delay. The situation also let political and legal observers come out with varying interpretations on the actions of the Senate President who apparently is looked upon as the brains in the delay of the trial.
The Senators themselves who will be sitting as judges in the impeachment trial have conflicting opinion on the legality of the Senate President’s prepared time-table of the impeachment proceedings.
Even on the possibility that the trial could be carried over to the next (20th) Senate lawyer senators appear very much in disagreement citing decisions made by the Supreme Court in earlier impeachment cases filed in the Senate several administrations ago.
Now the 19th Senate has barely a little over three weeks left before the 20th Senate sets in. Clearly the remaining session days of the 19th Senate will not even suffice for the completion of the trial preliminaries.
It is for these reasons that a Senator said that the impeachment case versus the Vice President is “functionally dead.”
If so, then the highly political partisans among us will likely miss the “bloodbath” that the Vice President warned will happen during the trial.
Of course for now no one really knows what is hidden in the sleeves of the impeachment proponents. Thus the possibility that the “bloodbath warned by the Vice President will still happen.
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Another recent development in the government recently that caused a lot of discourse among partisan Filipinos is the appointment of then Maj. Gen. Nicolas D. Torre III as the new Director General of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Many expressed disgust on his choice of General Torre as the new top PNP official by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. This sector of the population alleged that Torre does not merit the promotion. Rather, he is “rewarded” by the President for blind compliance with his mandate to eliminate his leading political enemies in former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his friend Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy who minces no words against the administration.
But in the case of the arrest of Quiboloy, was not then Brig. Gen. Torre just serving an arrest order issued by a legitimate Philippine Court and not by Malacanang?
In the case of the arrest of former President Duterte, was not Torre complying with a responsibility upended on the PNP by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of which the Philippines was a signing member until then President Duterte withdrew our membership in 2019?
Unluckily for the country the crimes for which the case was filed with the ICC were those allegedly committed years before the Philippines’ withdrawal from the world crime court. Thus, it is still covered by the Charter of the organization with regards to prosecution of officials involved in cases triable by the ICC.
The two missions assigned to Torre were all complied with sans even an iota of hesitation. And there was no doubt that as far as the legality of the process Torre could not have questioned the same. What with the arrest warrants having passed the rigid scrutiny of proper government agencies like the Department of Justice, the Presidential legal Counsel, and possibly with the Office of the Solicitor General.
The President who is the appointing authority for the Chief of the PNP could not have missed out knowing Torre’s performance. And since the President’s option for choices is not only limited to 3-star generals but to 2 and 1 star officers as well, it is just normal that a performer gets first notice. Possibly it is why Torre is now up there in the PNP hierarchy.
It is up to the newly assumed PNP Director General to prove that he is not just a recipient of a Presidential reward. He has to show to the Filipino people, specifically those who doubt the legitimacy of his appointment that he’s got what it takes to be the country’s top policeman.
General Torre has to prove them wrong.
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