Basic is the rule that the three branches of government have distinct functions and one may not intrude into the domain of the other. Essentially, the executive department executes and enforces the laws enacted by the legislative department and the judiciary interprets the laws. The three branches are separate but equal in their respective powers within their province. But all three branches are under one large organization called the bureaucracy.
This fundamental principles under a republican form of government bars one branch from exercising powers and functions of the others. What the present senate president had been doing insofar as the impeachment complaint of the incumbent vice president had brought to the fore the nagging questions on the separation of powers.
This after the incumbent senate president had arrogantly acted as interpreter of the laws, chiefly the constitution which power is exclusive within the province of the judiciary. He has expressed legal opinions that are actually deemed his own personal interpretation of the laws and the constitution. He has the temerity to stand with his own interpretation despite contrary opinions of legal experts, some of them law professors, retired justices and even framers of the constitution.
The delayed action on the impeachment complaint is rooted on the self-righteous stance of the incumbent senate president who posited a different interpretation of the constitutional provision that requires the senate to act on the impeachment complaint forthwith. He contends that the word does not mean immediately and such interpretation is uniquely just now. He stubbornly insists that the word forthwith is to be understood not on the basis of the rules on statutory construction but on his own interpretation.
He is fond of using ad hominem when his arguments are defeated by contrary positions that are grounded on strong foundation. The two framers of the constitution had even revisited the minutes of the debates during the constitutional convention just to prove their point. But the incumbent senate president stubbornly insisted on his own construction of the word forthwith, even questioning the lower house of the legislature on its purported delayed action.
He then questioned why there is no noise on such delay while his actions are being branded as delayed that is not only purposeful but intentional and calculated to favor the impeached vice president. While the debates on the issue seems cyclic and unending, he diverted the issue by taking pending legislative actions a priority over the impeachment.
Motions from the senate minority to convene the impeachment court by taking their oath as senator judges had likewise been derailed by a motion to dismiss even without trial. The movants who are renowned factotums of the former and now detained president as well as the impeached vice president had interrupted the proceedings by usurpers.
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