CHICKENPIE.The Philippines is about to watch a 92-day Senate trial, a Vice President on the stand, and fifteen senators pretending to be impartial. This is either the most important moment in Philippine constitutional democracy since EDSA, or the best telenovela since FPJ's Ang Probinsyano. Possibly both. Probably both.
Sara Duterte. The impeachment complaint started with the MOOE. The Department of Education's confidential funds. P612 million, accounted for in receipts that nobody has publicly seen, signed by people who cannot apparently be named. Then it got bigger. Threats against the President and the First Lady. A hitman. A sworn statement. The Senate voted to try her. Ninety-two days, beginning July 6.
Here is what ninety-two days looks like from outside the Senate chamber: the nation sits down. The commentators warm up. The lawyers bill. The impeachment court convenes. Sara Duterte sits at the respondent's table. Across from her: the body of lawmakers who will decide her fate, some of whom sit on committees investigating each other, some of whom have pending plunder cases in the Sandiganbayan, and at least one of whom was endorsed by the very administration the VP is accused of threatening. The Philippine Senate has never lacked for irony. It has never needed to import any.
Meanwhile, prices stay where they are. Traffic stays where it is. The 2025 budget whose confidential fund questions started this whole thing stays unresolved. The country functions in the background while the Senate becomes a courtroom. We are very good at this. We can hold two realities at the same time — historic institutional proceeding and complete daily dysfunction — and call it Thursday.
What the trial actually decides, beyond Sara's removal from office, is something larger and harder to score. It decides whether the Marcos-Duterte alliance was always a transaction with an expiration date, or whether this ends with a handshake and a press release about national reconciliation. Ninety-two days to answer that. Or to stage a very expensive distraction from ever answering it.
Either way: bring snacks. This one runs through September.
