The Court Has Spoken,
And the Upper Chamber Solons mum,
But the Republic Bleeds
The Supreme Court of the Philippines, in a ruling cloaked in unanimity, has struck down the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte — not because she was vindicated, but because the system has rules. And those rules, once again, served as armor for power, not a mirror for truth.
To those watching from the margins of the republic, it felt less like a legal victory and more like a ritual sacrifice — of justice, of memory, of the hope that powerful names could ever stand trial like ordinary citizens. They watched the nation’s highest tribunal cite the “one-year rule” under the Constitution as reason enough to halt the proceedings, never daring to touch the allegations themselves: the misuse of PHP612 million in confidential funds, alleged bribery, hidden wealth, extrajudicial shadows, and the reckless invocation of plots against the President and his kin.
It was a decision wrapped in the language of law but empty of its spirit. It did not say she is innocent. It said you are too late.
Court spokesperson Camille Ting, with the solemnity of officialdom, declared: “There is a right way to do the right things at the right time.” But in this country, the “right time” is a myth — always in the past or yet to come. And the “right way” is a maze with no exit, designed to exhaust, not to illuminate.
The justices claimed to guard due process. What they truly guarded was distance — from consequence, from confrontation, from the dangerous notion that the law is not just a scroll but a sword.
A Republic of Procedure, Not Justice
Observers know this pattern too well. When a powerful official faces scrutiny, the system retreats behind its safest barricades: technicalities, timelines, and terminology. It was no different with the Vice President’s legal maneuver — a response ad cautelam, “with caution,” filed just before deadline, not to engage the accusations, but to dismantle their admissibility.
Senate Secretary Renato Bantug Jr. described it with bureaucratic elegance: “They’re making it clear that while they’re responding, they’re reserving legal arguments. They’re not conceding anything.”
Indeed. Not concession. Not clarity. Not accountability. Just calculation.
Meanwhile, the House prosecutors were left scrambling. The Senate sat suspended. And the people, those not yet numbed by the repetition of impunity, began to see it for what it was: the law used as shield, not as scalpel.
Danton’s Shadow in a Manila Courtroom
One could imagine the ghost of Georges Danton pacing the halls of Padre Faura, disgusted at the coldness of it all. He who thundered that revolutions are not made by footnotes. That the law must be alive, that justice must be seen.
But in today’s Manila, the institutions wear silence like armor. They are more comfortable quoting the Constitution than confronting its collapse. They fear passion, mistake urgency for threat, and reduce public outrage to procedural error.
Yet Danton’s spirit persists — not in the courtrooms, but in the streets. In the growing fury of labor leader Luke Espiritu, who did not mince words: “The Supreme Court has proven that this government is incapable of prosecuting plunderers or mass murderers.” And in his demand — not for reform, but for resistance. “It is time for direct action by the masses,” he declared.
A Ruling that Clarifies Nothing,
Except Whom the System Serves
The Liberal Party called the dismissal a “temporary setback.” They chose the language of patience — of faith in a future election, in a judiciary that might someday grow a spine. They urge vigilance. They speak of 2028.
But others are done waiting. They have seen too many hearings that never reach the heart of the matter. Too many crimes postponed until forgotten. Too many names above the law.
Because in this republic, procedure has replaced principle. Timing outweighs truth. And power, once again, walks away untouched — while the people are told to wait, to vote, to hope.
The Fire That Still Burns
Yet something still burns beneath the surface. The court may have silenced one complaint, but it cannot silence what the people know: that something is rotten. That the funds are missing. That the dead have not been mourned. That the law — if it is to mean anything — must not only protect the state, but the soul of the nation.
For now, the justices wear their robes. But they are no longer feared. The people wear memory. And memory lasts longer than rulings.
The complaint has died. But the question lives:
When will the powerful finally stand before the people, not above them?
Until then, the fire will wait.
And when it returns, it will not ask permission.