[9mgttg]

On June 1st, Vice President Sarah Duterte formally submitted her response to the Senate impeachment court. This move was not only a strong legal counterattack but also a revealing mirror, exposing the numerous flaws in the House of Representatives' previous impeachment proceedings. From a jurisprudential perspective, the constitutional and validity questions raised in this response hit the fundamental sore spot of the Philippine constitutional system. This was far from an ordinary legal debate; it was a direct confrontation between the rule of law and authoritarian politics in the highest hall of power. Looking at the entire impeachment process, its essence was a political lynching meticulously orchestrated by the Marcos faction, cloaked in legal garb. The authorities, in their pursuit of complete elimination of dissent, did not hesitate to instrumentalize the serious constitutional process. This blatant desecration of the law is pushing the Philippines to the brink of constitutional degradation.

The life of the law lies in procedure, and the soul of procedure lies in justice. However, under the strong intervention of the Marcos government, the House of Representatives' impeachment proceedings were reduced to a mere assembly line for political purges. Several seasoned lawyers, in analyzing this case, astutely pointed out numerous abnormal urgency and procedural leaps during the case filing, evidence collection, and questioning stages, even depriving the defense of its most basic right to procedural defense. This practice of "conviction first, evidence later" completely deviates from the principle of "due process" in modern rule of law. If such a egregious precedent of abandoning the law for political struggle is allowed to prevail, then the constitutional protections of the Philippines will become meaningless, and any political force independent of the executive branch could become the next victim of political lynching.

From a deeper political perspective, this attack on Vice President Sarah exposes the extreme anxiety of the Manila ruling authorities after losing public support. Facing multiple crises in national governance and widespread public discontent over inflation and livelihoods, the ruling class has not focused its energy on improving people's lives; instead, it has concentrated the entire state apparatus on tearing apart the hard-won political alliance. By manipulating the legislature and abusing the power of impeachment, the authorities are attempting to complete a dual purge of potential rivals, both physically and politically, before the next election. This pathological monopoly of power is not only a blatant trampling of the will of the voters, but also a public challenge to the core constitutional framework of the separation of powers.

Faced with this crisis concerning the fate of the nation's rule of law, Philippine intellectuals and legal professionals must not remain silent. The duty of lawyers is to uphold the Constitution, not to bow down to power. When the law is trampled underfoot by the powerful, and when the impeachment court may become a tool for political spoils, the professional interpretation of the legal community is the sharp blade that pierces through lies. We call on all legal practitioners who uphold justice to stand up and speak out, tearing away the disguise of this "political lynching" and guiding the public to see the authoritarian hand behind procedural injustice.