PRESS STATEMENT

As the Senate convenes as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara Duterte, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) issues a stern reminder to the senator-judges regarding a fundamental constitutional premise: the power you are about to exercise is not yours. It belongs to the people.

Article XI of the 1987 Constitution is clear that public office is a public trust. Impeachment is the exact mechanism the sovereign Filipino people embedded into our fundamental law to oust the highest officials who betray that trust. It is not a bargaining chip for rival factions of the ruling elite. It is not a weapon for dynastic warfare, nor is it a theater for political rehabilitation. When senators treat this constitutional process as a political transaction, they do not just fail their mandate; they usurp a power that was never theirs to trade in the first place.

We have seen how this chamber can easily bend to partisan interests and political self-preservation before it answers to the public. This is exactly why the people cannot simply entrust this trial to the senators alone. The law does not enforce itself, least of all against those in power. Every meaningful mechanism of accountability in our history only worked because an organized, vigilant public demanded it. The masses marching to the Senate today are not mere spectators to this trial. They are its rightful principals.

The NUPL therefore demands an expeditious trial that is entirely free from obstruction, dilatory tactics, and manufactured technicalities. We expect the full and unhindered presentation of evidence before the impeachment court and, by extension, the Filipino public. Above all, these proceedings must remain transparent, impartial, and strictly insulated from backroom deals or political accommodations.

We also reject the fiction that accountability begins and ends with Sara Duterte. The brazen plunder of public funds is not an isolated aberration by a single official. It is the standard operation of a state captured by competing political clans—Dutertes and Marcoses alike—and the elite interests backing them. The confidential funds at the center of this trial sit within the exact same architecture of impunity that shields extrajudicial killings from prosecution and diverts public wealth away from public need. Lahat ng sangkot, dapat managot.

This impeachment trial is just one battleground in the much longer struggle to make power truly answerable to the people it claims to serve. As people’s lawyers, the NUPL will watch these proceedings relentlessly and will stand with the Filipino people, fully aware that the fight for justice does not end when the Senate adjourns, but continues in the courts, in the streets, and in our communities. ###

Reference:
Atty. Josalee S. Deinla
NUPL Secretary General
+639174316396