of President Arroyo and annually from 2006 to 2009 against Arroyo herself. It was
only in the 2012 impeachment of Chief Justice Corona that the impeachment
clause was actually implemented.
The legal framework
The 1987 constitution, in response to the excesses of one-man rule under Marcos,
contains strong provisions on public accountability. It grandly proclaims: “Public
office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must, at all times, be
accountable to the people.”^88 However, since the highest officers of the land enjoy
immunity from suit while in office, they are made accountable only through
impeachment, as reproduced below verbatim:
The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme
Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the
Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and
conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery,
graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust...^89
The process consists of two stages, both allocated to the bicameral legislature. It is
“initiated” by an indictment approved by at least one-third of the House of
Representatives, consisting of 286 members elected by district or by party list.
90
The charges are then heard by the Senate, which has the “sole power to try and
decide all cases of impeachment.”
(^91) It can remove an officer by a vote of two-thirds
of its twenty-four members, all of whom are elected nationwide.^92
Impeachable officers are further insulated from frivolous suits through a one-year
ban on the filing of a second impeachment charge, stated thus: “No impeachment
proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a
period of one year.”^93 This hitherto obscure clause would be the centerpiece of
impeachment debates for most of Arroyo’s presidency.
Impeachment is sui generis, simultaneously a legal and a political process.
It provides the perfect setting for the clash between formalism and populism,
between the highly juridical and the intrinsically political. The legal can be
seen in its intricate procedure, and in the legally defined impeachable offenses,
namely “treason, bribery, graft and corruption.”^94 The political can be seen in
the electoral mandate of the legislators who vote to impeach and remove, and the
open-ended nature of the remaining impeachable offenses, namely “culpable
violation of the Constitution [and] other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust,”
95
which are not defined in any black-letter rule, and the last of which is political
to the core.
(^88) Const. Art.xi§ 1. (^89) Const. Art.xi§ 2. (^90) Const. Art.xi§ 3. 1.
(^91) Const. Art.xi§ 3. 6. (^92) Const. Art.vi§ 2. (^93) Const. Art.xi§ 3. 5.
(^94) Const. Art.xi§ 2. (^95) Ibid.