When all else fails, go biblical. Alex Magno writes in his PhilStar piece today.
[Senator Risa] Hontiveros was betrayed by her support staff. She was arguing against archiving the impeachment case by resorting to fake news. Considering she has been accused of witness tampering in other cases, this peddling of fake news further taxes her credibility.
Facing the certainty of defeat in the roll call vote, Senator Tito Sotto prayed that God have mercy on the majority. That sounds like something a false prophet might say before being burned at the stake. It delivers no substantive argument.
This effectively takes Risa out of the presidential race in 2028 though you can be sure himas won’t give up easily. He will still push for her.
The ball is now squarely on the House of Representatives as to what their next move will be when the one year ban expires. Impeach again? Will the congressmen still prioritize incentives over political realities? Or will they begin shifting allegiance in preparation for 2028?
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Hontiveros was, indeed, betrayed by her support staff. She was arguing against archiving the impeachment case by resorting to fake news. Considering she has been accused of witness tampering in other cases, this peddling of fake news further taxes her credibility.
Speaker Martin Romualdez is the most obvious loser in last Wednesday’s Senate vote. Although he clumsily tried to hide his hand in the impeachment effort against his most likely 2028 rival, Vice President Sara Duterte. He cannot evade blame for this flustered effort. This is his second major strategic defeat. The first one was that equally clumsy attempt at Charter change that was aborted without much ceremony.
Increasingly, Romualdez’s gang of congressmen appears like our version of the Keystone Cops: reckless busybodies who never understood what they were doing. Yet they want to control the nation’s fate. What a chilling thought. His only “wins” are the mangling of the 2024 and 2025 national budgets that allowed his minions to loot public funds freely and bring grief to everybody else. His real challenge, on his second term as Speaker, is how to moderate his gang’s greed.
The civil society groups who formed a Bongo Line behind Romualdez’s impeachment ploy share in his political defeat. These groups can only be animated by vilification campaigns. Hate is their fuel. Slander is their weapon. When the nation’s highest tribunal ruled the impeachment to be infirm, they demonized the magistrates, labeling the font of our judicial system a “Duterte court.” When the Senate voted to archive the case, they labeled the institution a “Duterte Senate.”
Now they have no cause to rally for.
