TWO FORMER Supreme Court Associate Justices have openly expressed their disagreement with the ruling of the Highest Court, saying that the House of Representatives violated the one-year ban on the filing of another impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Another Magistrate, no less than a former Chief Justice, while calling on the people concerned to respect the decision of the Supreme Court on the VP’s impeachment, did not hesitate to disagree with the process by which the decision was arrived at. That is, the SC is not giving the House of Representatives the opportunity to submit its comments on the VP’s petition to stop the trial of her impeachment case.
The two retired Associate Justices are former Justice Adolf Azcuna and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. The former Chief Justice who took issue with the process adopted by the Supreme Court is Retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
The three former magistrates, however, have one thing in common. They are one in calling all those concerned to “respect the Supreme Court decision,” even if they are not in accord with it.
Of course, we cannot blame those who disagree with the ruling of the High Court, which literally stops the impeachment trial because of the violation of the one-year ban on filing another impeachment case.
In February this year, three groups almost simultaneously filed with the House impeachment cases. But while the documents were received by the House Secretary General, the impeachment cases filed were not submitted to the Justice Committee of the House. Instead, all three were archived. It was the fourth impeachment case submitted that was given due course and rapidly endorsed by the majority of Congressmen, and later transmitted to the Senate on the afternoon of the last session day.
So, as far as the members of the Highest Court of the land, there were a total of four impeachment cases filed in a period of less than half a year.
Still, there are those who doubt the objectivity of the ruling. No, it is not because the Supreme Court Justices are wanting in the understanding of the Constitutional provisions that govern the filing of impeachment cases against impeachable officials. It is the suspicion that politics and the Filipino trait of acknowledging “debts of gratitude” led to the births of so many “doubting Thomases.”
Yes, of the 15 Supreme Court Justices, 13 are appointees of the Vice President’s father, former President Rodrigo R. Duterte. Two are appointees of the late President Benigno Aquino III, including the decision’s Ponente Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, and one appointee of the incumbent President, Justice Raul Villanueva.
Justice Benjamin Caguioa, an Aquino III appointee, abstained. Another Duterte appointee, Maria Filomena Singh, was on official leave.
This configuration of the Supreme Court membership is the one that is creating clouds of doubt on the ruling favorable to the Vice President in her impeachment case. This, notwithstanding the fact that the lone Marcos, Jr. Appointee in the Supreme Court was one of those who penned the majority decision.
Of course, as the spokesperson of the Supreme Court said, the ruling stopping the VP’s impeachment trial owing to procedural violation does not stop the House or any entity from filing another impeachment case against the Vice President on the same ground after the one-year ban shall have lapsed. And that will be after February 6, 2026.
So, it is another case of “Let us to see” if the leadership of the new House will still have the tenacity to pursue the impeachment of the Vice President.
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Davao City’s emergency communication system is having an overload of “prank calls,” and that is the reason why First District Councilor Bonz Militar is bent on introducing a proposed ordinance that will allow a crackdown on prank callers and penalize those proven guilty of such a crime. Yes, according to the young Militar, responding to prank calls on the city’s 911 emergency hotline is a waste of the city’s resources.
We agree with such an observation. After all, any movement of vehicles under the city’s emergency response system uses fuel and man-hours of at least three or five personnel. And if the trip ends up with no emergency at the site mentioned in the call, then the trip is just a drain on the operational funds of the said office. Moreover, the same emergency vehicle could have been put to a more important response trip if the same was not goaded to address a non-existent emergency.
Imagine, according to Councilor Bonz, there are times when the City’s 911 receives as many as 3,000 calls in a day and only about 30 or a little over are real emergency calls!
By the way, has the City’s emergency communications system not developed a scheme with which to validate whether the call for emergency assistance is real or a hoax?
Maybe it is in this area that the city should spend money to develop such a system, especially now that we have the so-called computer-generated Artificial Intelligence.
