Marcoses in peril

By Artchil B. Fernandez

It is a stunning reversal of fortune. In the first quarter of this year, the Marcoses had the upper hand in their current tiff with the Dutertes. Then an impasse occurred in the second quarter. By the third quarter, the Marcoses lost the initiative while the Dutertes regained some lost ground. If the trend is not reversed, the Marcoses are in peril.

Why did the Marcoses lose momentum? How could they lose their advantage, thus allowing the other side to recover?

One major factor that reversed the favorable situation for the Marcoses is their failure to push through with the impeachment trial of Sara Duterte. The Marcoses demonstrated their devastating power by mobilizing more than three-fourths of the House to impeach the vice president. It was an awesome display of political muscle.

But after a massive show of power, things went kaput. The impeachment trial did not push through in the Senate. The trial was stalled, dragged, and finally archived.

It is perplexing why the Senate trial of Sara Duterte did not materialize. All the necessary ingredients for the impeachment trial to push through were present.

The first ingredient is the command of the Constitution. The Constitution is clear — upon transmittal and receipt of the articles of impeachment by the Senate, the trial must proceed forthwith or immediately.

Impeachment is a numbers game, and the administration has this element. A majority of the senators are allies of the administration. The administration proved it had the numbers in the Senate when then-Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri was removed from his post due to his failure to stop a Duterte-allied senator from using the Senate as a platform to hound the president with a drug-use issue.

Given the constitutional command and the numbers it has in the Senate, there is no reason for the administration to fail in holding the impeachment trial of Sara Duterte. It has invested huge political capital to impeach her. Yet the trial failed to happen. This is indicative of the collapse of Bongbong Marcos’ (BBM) political strategy.

BBM wants to have his cake and eat it too. He desired Sara Duterte neutralized or handicapped, yet he also wants not to be publicly seen as having a hand in the political decapitation of his mortal enemy. Privately, he plots against Sara Duterte but publicly acts innocent of the moves against her.

The impeachment of Sara Duterte had BBM’s fingerprints, with his son the first to sign the impeachment complaint in the House and his cousin affixing the last signature. Despite his evident involvement, BBM publicly washes his hands, claiming the impeachment is an act of an “independent” House and he has nothing to do with it.

The play-acting boomeranged on BBM, for it was seized upon by the opportunistic and sly Chiz Escudero to advance his own selfish agenda. Given a change in the composition of the Senate with half of the seats contested in the midterm election, Escudero has to maintain a delicate balancing act among the various factions in the Senate to secure their support and retain his position.

Worse, to sustain his innocent image, BBM did not mobilize his allies to force an impeachment trial. No arm-twisting happened to compel Escudero to obey the Constitution. Had BBM been as determined to hold an impeachment trial as he was in pushing to punish Zubiri for allowing Bato dela Rosa to malign him with an illegal drug-use issue, the Senate trial would have happened.

Further scaring BBM is the reaction of the Duterte camp to the arrest and handover of the Duterte patriarch to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Afraid of the backlash and its possible impact on the midterm election, BBM was immobilized and indecisive about what to do with the impeachment case in the Senate. This allowed Escudero to maneuver and push his own agenda.

Election results further discouraged BBM from forcing an impeachment trial. Though his candidates did not perform as expected, with barely half winning seats, he failed to appreciate the fact that the election also did not deliver for the Dutertes. He was fixated instead on the non-landslide outcome for his slate. He focused on the glass half-empty instead of seeing it as half-full. BBM lost heart in pushing for an impeachment trial of Sara Duterte in the Senate.

BBM’s attempt to play Jekyll and Hyde led to the collapse of the Sara Duterte impeachment project. His lack of strong will to push the impeachment to its logical conclusion and refusal to take risks led to the loss of the advantage House Marcos held. Worse, it allowed the Dutertes to recalibrate and go on the offensive.

More bad news came for the administration with the composition of the new Senate. The Duterte bloc was able to get key committees — Blue Ribbon, Public Order and Dangerous Drugs — and membership in the powerful Commission on Appointments. The Duterte bloc can be a powerful obstructionist force that can hasten the lame-duck status of BBM’s presidency. The last three years could be hell for the administration.

The unsuccessful impeachment project and a likely obstructionist Senate do not bode well for the present administration and the Marcoses. The Dutertes are not only not neutralized — they are regaining the initiative. Sara Duterte is becoming more vocal and strident in attacking BBM’s administration after gaining fresh confidence with the flop of her impeachment. This puts the Marcoses in a perilous situation.

Unless the Marcoses turn around the current circumstances, they are facing a dark and dangerous future with their very survival at stake.