First of two partsAS this column stated in September of this year, the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte is a foregone conclusion.All the actions of her political enemies, even before she resigned as secretary of education, and while there was still no crack in the UniTeam forged between her and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for the 2022 presidential elections, were all predicated on stripping her political capital and credibility as a public official, geared toward her political annihilation — as a prelude to her elimination as a candidate in the 2028 presidential elections.The demolition process commenced when her staunchest ally, the former House speaker and former president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was abruptly removed as senior deputy speaker, then subsequently ousted as an official of the lower chamber on the instructions of the third person of the political trinity, whose insatiable obsession to occupy Malacañang in 2028 is matched only by his relentless and devilish orchestration of destroying VP Sara, whom he perceived to be the only obstacle to the realization of his dream to reach the acme of political power in the country.Predicated actions against DutertesThereafter, what the people described as shameless and spineless political hypocrites who used to sing hosannas and praises to former president Rodrigo Duterte began the political crucifixion of the latter's daughter, zeroing in on her confidential funds, forgetting that it was President Marcos who gave it to her, upon her request, to use it against the enemies of the state who were recruiting youthful students, training them to overthrow the government, and bringing them to their graves.They then focused on her father and passed a resolution urging the president to junk the country's withdrawal from membership with the International Criminal Court (ICC), with the intention of placing him under its jurisdiction and putting him behind bars, despite the correctness of BBM's foreign policy against ICC's insistent jurisdiction over us, and notwithstanding such reversal is constitutionally impermissible — a surrender of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity.To divest former president Duterte of a platform to express his political views on what he perceived to be the excesses of the current administration, the wily and crooked politicians, who anti-congressional critics describe as political vultures, unleashed a systematic assault on the former president's close friend Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, the religious leader of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) that owned the Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), which led to the revocation of its franchise and the filing of baseless criminal cases (which had been previously dismissed by the Office of the Prosecutor of Davao City but resurrected by the Department of Justice) against Quiboloy, resulting in his incarceration, pending the termination of his trial, and curtailing the constitutional right of SMNI to unhampered broadcast of news and information.Little tyrants, nauseating demeanorThe cabal, to camouflage the covert intention of politically demolishing the Dutertes, conducted congressional investigations (inquisition is the more appropriate description ) relative to the confidential funds used by the Department of Education, which VP Sara headed prior to her resignation, and the Office of the Vice President, as well as the matter of extrajudicial killings during former president Duterte's stint as Davao City mayor, and as the country's president, under the guise of 'in aid of legislation.'They used the forum to picture the father and daughter as a ruthless killer and a corrupt public servant, respectively. In both congressional hearings, some of the incorrigible lawmakers were unmasked as palpably ignorant of the Constitution and unknowing even of their own rules.The arrogant ones acted like little tyrants in their own little kingdoms. Their intellectual pretensions were on glaring display on national television. Based on the reaction on social media from those who watched the proceedings, they succeeded only in angering the people with their nauseating demeanor.Veiled conspiracy or forced groupingThe group of impeachment complainants mainly come from the anti-Duterte forces, namely, the so-called yellows/pinks and the left-leaning detractors, who incidentally have both been repudiated in the two previous elections. There is a rumored third group of complainants, said to be coming from the administration allies.There appears to be either a veiled conspiracy between the assemblage of impeachment filers to humiliate VP Sara and to perpetually disqualify her from holding public office or a forced and unintentional grouping of individuals with different ideologies but the same political agenda against a common political enemy.To be concluded on Dec. 23, 2024
