By Ade S. Fajardo
The Supreme Court has affirmed with finality the dismissal of the 2025 impeachment charges against Vice President Sara Duterte.
The court’s decision has been scored for “judicial overreach.”
Iloilo 3rd District’s Representative Lorenz Defensor is alarmed over how the judiciary is “dictating how we interpret our session days.
It bothers me that they are suggesting how we should proceed with impeachment referral especially in impeachment complaints endorsed by all members of the House of Representatives.”
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Senate President Vicente Sotto III said impeachment is now “an impossible dream.” The court’s decision to change certain impeachment rules has made the process extremely difficult.
Consequently, he said he will support any effort for charter change because “it might really take years, or several retirements, before we can finally move forward and put [impeachment] back in its proper place in the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court decision was unanimous. It will take decades to reverse it.
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“I’m against a constitutional convention and I’m also against a constitutional assembly, but if we’re dealing with things like this, then I’m willing to agree,” Sotto added.
He said he would soon meet with Speaker Bodjie Dy of the House of Representatives, possibly to set the wheels of charter change in motion.
This can trigger not only amendments but quite possibly a revision of the Constitution.
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Will this Congress finally bring charter change to the table?
Will the president give his informal assent?
The fastest and arguably most efficient way to amend or revise the Constitution is Congress itself assembling as a special body — a constituent assembly — not to pass ordinary legislation but to discuss nothing but the Constitution.
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Article 17, Section 1 of the current Constitution provides the legal basis of the constituent assembly.
“Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members.”
The unresolved legal question is whether Congress must vote jointly or separately. The 1987 Constitution fails to specify.
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Sotto must secure a three-fourths vote in the Senate to evade this legal question that will surely find its way to the Supreme Court.
Doubt may not be resolved in favor of joint voting whereby the Senate will be overwhelmed by the House vote. A revision in this manner may see the justices themselves legislated out of office by the House displeased over its impeachment ruling.
Will the Senate president be able to secure 18 votes from his backyard?
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Pundits can claim the time is ripe for charter change. A country rocked by corruption scandals will try almost anything for a strand of hope for the next generation of Filipinos.
The new Constitution can finally provide a definition for political dynasties to enable election bodies to disqualify candidates who fall within the prohibition.
The time is now for politicians to effect serious changes in a landscape where they are used to winning. That is the greatest challenge./WDJ