Listening to my DLSU Public Officers students role-playing senators delivering their final speeches in a fictitious impeachment trial involving an imagined president in 2019. The questions they are addressing to determine guilt or innocence are: 1. What is the standard of evidence required in impeachment proceedings? Adoption of such a standard is needed to resolve the a factual question involving an alleged conversation between the fictitious president, speaker of the house and senate president where the president is said to have promised to used savings to fund legislators projects with the following phrase uttered: “Ok. I will help you if you help me.” 2. Did the commitment the President made to have her Cabinet confirmed, where she (yes, the imagined president is a female) promised to used savings to pay for legislators projects, constitute the impeachable acts of bribery and betrayal of public trust? They have to explain what bribery is under our public accountability laws and what constitutes betrayal of public trust. 3. In addition, new facts emerged during the fictitious trial where it turned out that the president appointed an unqualified person to the Civil Service Commission and that she has used savings to fund projects even after the DAP has been declared (fictitiously) unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, did the President culpably violate the Constitution in the way she used savings and in her appointment of an unqualified person to the Civil Service Commission? Whether affirmative or negative on these issues, can the Senate rule on this given that Supreme Court has issued a TRO on including charges not in the original impeachment complaint.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 07:41:34 +0000
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