The farce in the impeachment trial

By Michael Henry Yusingco, LL.M

Everyone involved is proceeding as if it was a criminal trial, even though all would always assert that impeachment is not a criminal proceeding. The only explanation for this weird twist is that it gives the protagonists the chance to showcase their dramatic chops. Sadly, their juvenile theatrics have distracted the public from internalizing three serious pathologies revealed in this impeachment trial. This is the farce.

First, giving confidential and intelligence funds to civilian offices is fundamentally wrong. Confidential and intelligence funds are exceptional allocations justified by the specialized operational requirements of agencies engaged in national security, intelligence gathering, law enforcement or similarly sensitive functions. They are not ordinary discretionary funds that can simply be handed to civilian offices because their heads claim that confidentiality is necessary to ‘some’ of the work they do.

When such funds are allocated to offices whose core functions have little or nothing to do with intelligence or covert operations, they effectively become a slush fund placed at the disposal of the head of an agency or office. That is precisely the danger. The extraordinary nature of confidential funds means that they are subject to less transparency than ordinary public expenditures. The public cannot scrutinize every transaction, and the normal requirements of disclosure are necessarily limited.

Second, the legal and regulatory framework governing the allocation, use and auditing of confidential and intelligence funds is itself deeply problematic. These funds are principally governed by a joint circular rather than by a comprehensive statute enacted by Congress. That should concern anyone who believes in the constitutional principle that public funds must be appropriated, spent and accounted for according to clear rules established by law. A joint circular may provide administrative guidelines, but it is a weak foundation for regulating billions of pesos in highly sensitive public expenditures.

This exposes a larger structural problem: the budget process itself is not governed by a single, comprehensive omnibus budget law that clearly regulates the entire cycle of public expenditure—from proposal and congressional deliberation to appropriation, execution, auditing and accountability. Instead, the system is scattered across constitutional provisions, statutes, administrative regulations, budget circulars and institutional practices. That fragmentation creates gaps, ambiguity and opportunities for manipulation.

Lastly, the lack of comprehensive and coherent regulation over the budget process makes it easier for powerful officials and legislators to exploit the budget process through opaque allocations, discretionary funds and, notoriously, questionable budget insertions. Many of the legislators participating in the trial were themselves part of Congress when confidential funds were allocated to Vice President Sara Duterte. Some approved the appropriations. Some did not seriously question whether those funds belonged in a civilian office in the first place.

Worse, recent allegations surrounding unlawful or questionable budget insertions have implicated legislators directly involved in the impeachment trial. It is therefore not enough for politicians to demand accountability from one impeached official while ignoring the institutional failures—and their own possible participation—that made such questionable appropriations possible. The hypocrisy must be called out, with due respect of course.

Therefore, the repeated declaration during the impeachment proceedings that ‘public funds must be accounted for’ should not be allowed to become an empty slogan. Every peso of public money must be subject to accountability. But the lawmakers invoking that principle must also be held accountable for their own role in creating the system they now condemn. Accountability cannot be selective. It cannot mean prosecuting one official while treating the legislators who approved, inserted, enabled or tolerated questionable appropriations as innocent spectators.

This is where media has a crucial role to portray, no pun intended. Journalists must overcome the impeachment zarzuela and continue to investigate the paper trail, identify who proposed and approved the allocations, and explain how the budget process was manipulated or exploited. The public must be reminded that the controversy did not begin and end with one official or one impeachment trial. And most crucial of all, voters and taxpayers must be constantly warned that electing plunderers in 2028, simply ensures the plunder of the public coffers.