When the Revised Penal Code defines a crime, it enumerates the elements that a judge must find to be able to rule that the crime has been consummated. When Article XI of the Constitution enumerates the grounds for impeachment, it gives nothing more than broad headings that defy all antecedent specifics: betrayal of the public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other similar generalities. Ultimately, an offense warrants impeachment when the Lower House says it does. There may be pious protests in the name of constitutional theory against this statement—but ultimately, that is what it all turns out to be, which is not to say, of course, that that is how things should be! Otherwise, the Constitution could have more simply and forthrightly read: “The President, the Vice President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman and the Members of the Constitutional Commissions may be removed from office by impeachment whenever the House of Representatives votes for the articles of impeachment against any of the foregoing.” If the Constitution enunciates grounds, then there must, in the very least, be a finding that one or the other ground is present —but, again, it is the Lower House that makes such a determination.
Will certiorari lie—especially since Article VIII of the Constitution provides the courts with such a broad sweep in the face of official acts gravely abusive of discretion? I do not think so, because there has to be some judicial standard against which to reckon whether or not discretion has been abused. And what standards do the courts go by when the House of Representatives makes a determination that an impeachable official should be impeached? The ordinary meaning of words is not of much help, because one can be said to “betray the public trust” in so many ways. Detractors of Leni Robredo claim that she betrayed public trust by expressing grave concern and, in a way, condemning the spate of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Duterte’s own foes claim that he betrayed public trust by allowing the PROC to send its ships through the troubled waters of the West Philippine Sea, and even over the Benham Rise on our eastern seaboard! How does one say what does and does not constitute a betrayal of public trust?
This points to the inadequacy of the text when it comes to fidelity to constitutionalism. If ours is a government hemmed in by the Constitution, as it should be, then the Constitution should be of paramount importance, which is the reason that every public officer swears to uphold and to defend it. But “constitution” cannot refer only to the written text—as the present conundrum so amply demonstrates. It must refer as well to the culture of respecting the institutions of the constitution and keeping them from the hands of the reckless. Britons have what is known as “the conventions of the Constitution.” We might very well refer too to a “constitutional culture”—the culture of keeping within the bounds of the purpose of constitutional provisions. Certainly, impeachment was not meant to be ready tool of political vendetta or the persecution of one’s political foes. It was a device by which the Republic might save itself from the stewardship of inept, incapable or corrupt and treacherous leaders! That, I believe, is what is lacking. There is an adroitness about citing the Constitution and drawing recondite implications from its rather lapidary and, at least in many places, limpid provisions. But what is sorely lacking is a constitutional culture that makes us respectful of what is unwritten but clearly intended.
PNoy used the machinery of impeachment and his intimidating following in the Lower House to force Merceditas Gutierrez into resigning. He got his way with Chief Justice Renato Corona, prompting the brilliant and unflappable Joker Arroyo to remark in exasperation: “I cannot believe that we are impeaching a Chief Justice because of an erroneous SALN.” In that case, the Lower House virtually ruled that misstating one’s assets in a SALN was either a “culpable violation of the Constitution” or a “betrayal of public trust.”
True, impeachment has been characterized by many constitutional theorists as an exercise of “political justice,” but “justice” is as much part of the expression as is “political”—unless, of course, in this jurisdiction, “political justice” is an oxymoron. But what it should mean is a political determination, after an assiduous review of evidence, that a high official of the land is no longer worthy of office.
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com