CHICKENPIE.The calendar says July 6. The Senate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has an official start date now, a docket number, and a set of articles that spell out what she is accused of. Everyone is treating this like the beginning of something.
It isn't. It's the paperwork.
Sara Duterte has been on trial in the court of public opinion since she spent her first education budget on desk chairs while classrooms flooded. Since she went on a Facebook livestream and described, in specific detail, a plan to have the President, the First Lady, and the Senate President killed — then added, with the energy of someone announcing a sale at SM, that she'd already paid ₱1 million as down payment. Since she dared the government to arrest her and watched, apparently baffled, as it eventually tried.
The impeachment articles include "culpable violation of the Constitution," "graft," and "other high crimes." The House passed them with a speed that would be impressive if the task weren't so overdue. The Senate set a date. The Philippine political machine, which normally moves like traffic on EDSA on a rainy Monday, found its urgency when the target was the sitting vice president of the Republic.
This is where the dynasty math gets interesting. The Marcoses are in the Palace. The Dutertes are in the dock. The two-family coalition that won 2022 by a landslide is now trying to put each other in prison. None of this was in the brochure.
The trial could end with conviction and a lifetime ban from public office. It could end with a Senate reorganization that somehow involves a senator surfacing from hiding, ICC warrant in pocket, claiming procedural immunity. It could end with a surprise vote that nobody predicted because nobody asked the right person in the right corridor. Philippine politics doesn't do endings — it does sequels, and then retcons.
July 6 is a formality. The real question is whether the verdict arrives before the 2028 campaign math starts making new alliances necessary.
The gavel will come down.
The gavel has always been on fire.
