The Senate Archives the Case — But Cannot Bury the Question
When the Senate, by a vote of 19 in favour, opted to archive the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte, it did not just make a legislative decision—it chose to speak to history, albeit with a muffled voice. They called it procedure, but the public heard silence. They spoke of finality, but the people smelled fear.
And in that silence, the ghost of José Avelino stirred again.
Avelino, Senate President in the fragile years of the First Republic, once faced his peers and said with frankness that shocked polite society:
“What are we in power for? We are not hypocrites. Why should we pretend to be saints when in reality we are not? When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he made a distinction between good crooks and bad crooks. We can be good crooks.”
Many had laughed bitterly then. Few had the courage to agree. But nearly eighty years later, his words feel less like a scandal, and more like a mirror.
For what else can one say about a Senate that shelves—rather than settles—a challenge of national consequence? That refuses to even try the case, citing procedural uncertainties, and buries the issue behind the comforting word “archive”?
There was no ruling. No testimony. No public hearing.
There was only a motion to keep things quiet.
Some senators said it was “not yet time”—that politics should wait for the court’s final word. Others appealed to “the institutions”, as if the institution they served was not precisely the one duty-bound to uphold accountability. They forgot that the Senate, as co-equal to the Supreme Court, is not a waiting room, but a chamber of judgment.
The same late Avelino, in rare candor, once rose and spoke—not with pretense, but with conscience—in the language of his generation:
“Señor Presidente, ¿no es la verdad que sin hacerlos vigorosamente es traicionar y negar esencialmente nuestros deberes como sirvientes públicos? ¿Para qué está el nuestro mandato del pueblo?”
And from his words tore through the veil of parliamentary ritual, piercing the heart of the matter: What is the mandate of public office, if not the solemn duty to pursue truth with unwavering vigor?
Why, indeed, are they in power?
For sure as solons, especially those concerned would have understood this moment well, that the measure of public service is not in the comfort of one’s office, but in the courage to confront storms—even those that come from within. But the Senate did not confront this storm. It went around it. And in doing so, it has only confirmed what many citizens already suspect: that the old adage “once you're in public office, you're eaten by the system” is no longer cynical, but self-evident.
That citizens now speak in legalese is not mockery—it is necessity. That they demand accountability, even from the second highest office of the land, is not sedition—it is the exercise of democracy.
One cannot chide the people for asking questions when it is they who fund this republic with their taxes, their labor, their votes. And if the answer the Senate gives them is a shrug disguised as procedure, then do not be surprised when distrust grows deeper.
The Constitution is not a curtain to hide behind. It is a lamp to illuminate. It was meant to protect institutions by allowing them to correct themselves. But here, it was used as a veil to avoid confrontation.
They say they archived the case for the rule of law.
But what the people saw was an act done in the service of the rule of silence.
Let no one be mistaken: to archive is not to resolve. To delay is not to absolve. And to bury is not to forget.
If Avelino’s words still echo, it is because the dilemma of power remains unresolved in our time. Shall it be wielded for the comfort of the few—or for the mandate of the many?
The Senate chose the former. But history watches still.
And so do the people.