Legal circus around the impeachment trial

The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte appears ready to begin another legal circus aimed at undermining the Senate impeachment court after a majority of senator-judges voted to lower the threshold required for conviction.

The Vice President’s lawyers have only one legal anchor: the Constitution. It provides the two-thirds requirement for conviction, and they are expected to seize on that provision to challenge the Senate’s action before the Supreme Court.

But constitutional arguments should not be divorced from common sense.

Why should senators who are not actually participating in the impeachment proceedings be allowed to determine the fate of the accused?

If certain senator-judges are legally impaired from attending and participating in the trial, their ability to cast an informed and impartial vote becomes questionable.

An impeachment trial is not an ordinary legislative exercise. It is a quasi-judicial proceeding requiring participation, deliberation and judgment based on the evidence presented.

Earlier, former Supreme Court associate justices invited to give their views reportedly expressed the position that the authority to determine the voting threshold rests with the impeachment court, despite the constitutional two-thirds provision. That view gives the Senate a legal basis to defend its action, even if the issue remains highly contentious.

The predictable next move is for members of the Senate minority, through the Vice President’s lawyers, to bring the dispute once again to the Supreme Court.

And there lies the danger.

Instead of allowing the impeachment trial to proceed to its central question—whether the Vice President committed impeachable offenses—the country could be dragged into another prolonged constitutional dispute over procedure.

The Supreme Court challenge could portray the Senate as having violated the Constitution, thereby attacking not merely the impeachment court but the institutional integrity of the entire Senate.

The result would be delay, distraction and another spectacle of politicians arguing over rules while the country waits for accountability.

Perhaps that is precisely the strategy.

Every procedural controversy pushes the actual impeachment case further into the background. Every court challenge buys time. Every constitutional quarrel creates another political battlefield.

And behind all these legal maneuvers looms the real prize: Malacañang in 2028.

This is no longer merely about an impeachment trial. It is increasingly a struggle over who will occupy the presidential palace after the next election. The legal circus may simply be politics in judicial costume.