Aborted impeachment of President Estrada in 2001
This clause was used for the first time in President Estrada’s impeachment in
November 2000. However, the trial of the highly popular Estrada, a former movie
actor, was aborted over the issue of suppressed evidence, i.e. a sealed envelope
of banking records allegedly owned by him. When the Senate upheld the
confidentiality of the bank records, thousands of citizens gathered in protest and,
after the top military brass joined the protesters, then Supreme Court chief justice
Hilario Davide swore in Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as new president,
purporting to perform the merely administrative act of dispensing an oath while
properly reserving the option to rule on any subsequent judicial challenge.
96
That challenge was thrown out by the court inEstradav.Desierto, finding that
Estrada had “constructive[ly] resigned” from office.
97
In this episode, the law served
as handmaiden to popular politics and provided merely the ideological cover to
legitimize Estrada’s ouster.
Aborted impeachment of Chief Justice Hilario Davide in 2003
The impeachment power having been unleashed, it was next deployed against the
chief justice who swore in Arroyo. He was first charged in June 2003 by ousted
president Estrada for administering the oath to Arroyo, but the Estrada camp could
not muster the requisite votes in Congress, and the complaint was dismissed in
October 2003.
The next day, the second complaint was filed against Davide over irregularities
in the use of a special, unaudited judiciary fund and, this time, the Estrada camp
gathered enough votes to impeach him. However, the Supreme Court nullified the
indictment inFranciscov.House of Representatives,
98
citing a hitherto unused
clause, the one-year bar on a second impeachment against the same public officer.
The court read this clause strictly in favor of its chief justice and, once again, the
court asserted the primacy of judicial review over the political decision to impeach.
Junking the four impeachment complaints against Arroyo
Unwittingly, however,Franciscoalso made it easier for an accused public officer to
insulate himself from impeachment simply by getting someone to file a weak
impeachment complaint and triggering the one-year bar each year. Ironically,
President Arroyo was the main beneficiary of this doctrine. She was the target of
four impeachment attempts during her presidency, all of which were dismissed.^99
(^96) A.M. No 01 - 1 - 05 -SC,In re: Request of Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to Take Her
Oath of Office as President of the Republic of the Philippines before the Chief Justice
(January 22 , 2001 ).
(^97) Estradav.Macapagal-Arroyo, G.R. Nos. 146738 (March 2 , 2001 );Estradav.Desierto, G.R.
Nos 146710 - 15 (March 2 , 2001 ).
(^98) Francisco. (^99) See De Jesus, “Distorting the rule of law.”