By Adrian H. Halili,Reporter
THE impending impeachment complaint against President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. may be meant to gauge and shore up allies willing to go up against the administration, an analysts said at the weekend.
“This can also be interpreted as a political move to check how many congressmen are entertaining the idea of going against the Marcoses, since we are also expecting that Marcos, Jr. is about to become lame-duck president after the midterms,” Arjan P. Aguirre, who teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
Last week, the Duterte Youth party-list said they are set to file what would be the first impeachment complaint against Mr. Marcos.
The group attempted to submit their impeachment complaint to House Secretary-General Reginald S. Velasco last Thursday. Mr. Velasco, however, was not present to receive the impeachment complaint due to a scheduled strategic planning from May 6 to 8.
According to Mr. Aguirre, the move may have been meant to organize the allies of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte in the House of Representatives, especially as several new congressmen are set to take office in the next Congress.
“This is dependent on the turnover [in] tomorrow’s elections. Should there be enough upsets or defeats of incumbent admin allies, there is always the opportunity for it to hold,” Hansley A. Juliano, a political science lecturer from the Ateneo de Manila University said in a Messenger chat.
He added that the turnover of the 20th Congress will decide how much leverage Mr. Marcos has in leading and herding the lower house, through his cousin Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez.
“If there’s enough lost allies, nothing has stopped attempts at engineering Speaker turnovers before,” Mr. Juliano said.
Duterte Youth accused the President of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust for allowing the transfer of Mr. Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
According to their complaint, Mr. Marcos “ceded sovereign control over a domestic legal matter to an international body that no longer holds jurisdiction over the Philippines. This act is a blatant constitutional violation of national sovereignty.”
“President Marcos Jr.’s decisions and actions to unilaterally surrender former President Duterte to a foreign tribunal, is a betrayal of public trust. He exhibited gross inconsistency and bad faith, deceiving the Filipino people and failing to uphold his sworn duty to defend the Constitution and execute the country’s laws,” the group added.
Under the 1987 Constitution, Impeachable offenses include “culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust.”
While it is still unclear how the impeachment complaint will affect ICC proceedings, Jemy Gatdula, Dean of University of Asia and the Pacific School of Law said in a messenger chat the court had said they will proceed regardless of the events in the Philippines.
Local police arrested Mr. Duterte on March 11, upon his arrival at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, acting on a warrant issued by the ICC. He was flown to the Netherlands hours later.
He is under investigation for his alleged crimes against humanity in connection with his government’s bloody war on drugs.
