In sin and error pining

OWERTYMAN - It was at an early Christmas lunch when a friend asked if I thought that Vice President Sara Duterte would be impeached, with all the motions now on the table to that effect. I wasn't expecting politics to be taken up over the merrymaking, but this is the Philippines where we breathe politics, so I obliged.

- JOSE DALISAY

I said that while I certainly believed that the VP was fit to be impeached for all the obvious financial irregularities happening under her watch, I very much doubted that it was going to happen. And why not? Because it was going to come down to the votes in the House and in the Senate, and while President BBM and his allies doubtlessly had the muscle to push the motion through, I just didn't see why they would.

And again, why not? You don't think they can come up with the evidence to find her culpable for the misuse of hundreds of millions of public money in confidential funds? They could, if they want to, I said – but again, why would they?

Think about it this way, I said. Impeachment is political, so the facts don't really matter much, except for propaganda purposes – especially with elections coming up in a few months. Don't get me wrong – there are people who take the process and its reasons seriously, as we all really should, because millions going to non-people like "Mary Grace Piattos," "Chippy McDonald," and "Fernando Tempura" in the guise of "intelligence operations" insults our non-artificial intelligence.

VP Sara's refusal to explain these strange endowments paints her further into a corner – which, it seems, is exactly where she wants to be. When she says, "I'll be at peace when I'm impeached," and when her drumbeaters exclaim that the hearings are turning the Dutertes into "folk heroes," then you know that she's not going to get what she wants.

Why would PBBM let her go? What would be in it for him? He doesn't need a functioning Vice President – he never had one; this VP can't point to a single memorable deed beyond publishing an expensive book. Cutting off his "UniTeam" partner and depriving her of her last official job would simply give her free rein to wreak more mayhem with no accountability to the government or the people.