The fastest way to lose the public’s trust during Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment would be any move to bury inconvenient facts, former Senate president Franklin Drilon cautioned, drawing on a national memory that still stings.
Pressed on what he viewed as the single biggest danger now confronting the Philippines, Drilon answered without pause. “To me, the greatest risk is the failure of the impeachment process, and I base that assessment on political history,” he said in a June 19 statement.
His reasoning rests on a chapter of governance he lived through and documented at length in his memoir “Being Frank.” The turning point, he recalled, came when senators blocked the opening of the so-called “second envelope” during the trial of former president Joseph Estrada — a decision the public read as a deliberate cover-up. “That prompted an instability which resulted in the change of government. That is what we have to look out for. That is what our senators should be conscious about,” he said.
Voters today, Drilon argued, are even less forgiving of secrecy than they were back then, since social media now spreads information at a pace that leaves little room for leaders to manage perception. “The people would not stand for hiding the truth. In an impeachment trial, the public would like to know the truth, and attempts to hide the truth will not be accepted by our people,” he said.
He framed the consequences as genuinely unpredictable. “That is why we should be careful, because in my opinion, when the people will notice that there is an attempt to hide the truth, especially for personal and political ends, I cannot predict what the people will do,” he said.
Drilon also turned to the mechanics of the trial, offering guidance drawn from the two impeachment proceedings he witnessed across his 24 years in the chamber. He cautioned the Senate against naming an impeachment manager. “I advise my former colleagues, do not have an impeachment manager, because you are supposed to be a collegial body that is impartial. And while an impeachment manager can indeed be impartial, the projection can be different,” he said.
His preferred arrangement leans on personnel already in place. “We have a clerk of the impeachment court, Senate Secretary Renato Bantug, who is very experienced and very impartial, and will be able to run the administrative needs of the impeachment court,” he said, suggesting the chamber’s standing officials absorb the trial’s logistical load.
