Construction of the simple term that does not require knowledge in law or rocket science had drawn people into debates that divide not just the senate and the lower house but the Filipino nation as well. It is the intentional misconstruction of the word that ignited debates in the senate halls and on social media. The delaying tactics of the senate president in commencing the impeachment trial of the vice president is so appalling to observers. Legal luminaries had expressed the common view that the word forthwith is a mandate for the senate to convene as an impeachment court and immediately begin the impeachment trial.
We do not know where those who choose to make understanding the simple word took their elementary education, but this writer’s elementary school taught the simple word forthwith its simple meaning that is immediate. It is not later or any convenient time one wishes to perform the required act. To proceed immediately and without delay is the simple interpretation of the word.
With the turbulence caused by the intentional misinterpretation of the constitutional provision, the incumbent senate president had taken liberty is delaying the impeachment trial of the impeached vice president. The tactic is clearly giving the impeached vice president the luxury of time to travel anywhere, chiefly to the Hague in the Netherlands to visit her beloved father, the former and now detained president who is in detention under the order of the International Criminal Court.
The issue of the impeachment delay had hogged the limelight as headlines in social media. Many legal experts had been invited by the senate to shed light on the issue. The resource persons included retired supreme court justices, constitutional law professors and members of the constitutional commission that drafted the present constitution. All opinions failed to overcome the stubborn position and interpretation of the senate president.
While the senate has not yet started the impeachment trial, two senators who are long-time loyalists to the former and now detained president, took the floor to move for the dismissal of the impeachment complaint. The motion to dismiss was purportedly based on the defective impeachment complaint and the alleged violation of the constitutional provision that allows only one impeachment complaint in a year. The motion seeks the dismissal of the impeachment complaint without trial.
Then another grandstanding lawyer in the senate manifested that the articles of impeachment be returned to the lower for it to certify that the same was made in accordance with law. Such return in process is out of deemed out of the books aimed to rip the entire impeachment process.
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