El Diablo in the Impeachment Chamber

The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has reached an interesting stage. If we were keeping score purely on evidence, I would give the prosecution the lead: 65%–35%. But impeachment is not fought on one scoreboard.

Inside the chamber, the prosecution is constructing a case around confidential funds, financial transactions, witness testimony and Duterte’s own recorded words. What began as a collection of allegations is becoming a more interconnected evidentiary narrative. The defense, however, continues to exploit weaknesses in authentication, hearsay, credibility, context and—most importantly—the constitutional question of whether the evidence establishes an impeachable offense.

So, the prosecution leads on points. But then there is El Diablo. Not the devil of theology. The devil of politics. He doesn’t need to whisper, “Vote this way.”

He merely needs to remind everyone in the room that tomorrow exists—and, with a knowing smile, add: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sin some more.” 😈 Because tomorrow is where political arithmetic becomes personal.

Sixteen votes are required for conviction. Several of those senators who cast them are navigating increasingly complicated political and legal terrain.

Loren Legarda is abroad while the Ombudsman questioned her repeated requests to extend her stay. She has denied the allegations. Alan Peter Cayetano, former senate president and now the minority leader, and Robin Padilla are dealing with an Ombudsman investigation arising from the departure of Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

Then came Ping Lacson.

Lacson didn’t merely raise another political accusation against Cayetano. He turned over documentary and testimonial evidence concerning alleged irregularities in Taguig infrastructure projects to the Ombudsman. His team says Taguig accumulated ₱14.4 billion in infrastructure projects between 2020 and 2025 and has identified dozens of allegedly anomalous flood-control projects, including alleged ghost projects, double appropriations and reused photographs supporting billing. The Ombudsman is now examining the evidence. Cayetano denies wrongdoing.

That is not a finding of guilt. But it is no longer merely political theater. The evidence has entered the machinery of the Ombudsman.

Cayetano’s political vulnerability is therefore becoming harder to ignore. He remains one of Sara Duterte’s most dependable defenders—a Duterte diehard—while the Taguig investigation places an uncomfortable question beside that loyalty: how much of the Duterte-era largesse flowed through the political machinery surrounding him and his family, and at what cost?

That question belongs to investigators, not this columnist. But politically, the question itself can be combustible.

And there is El Diablo again. He doesn’t have to threaten anyone. He merely places a question on the table: What happens tomorrow?

The Senate therefore finds itself in an extraordinary position. The men and women who are supposed to sit as judges in the impeachment of one vice president are operating in a political environment where investigations, allegations and possible prosecutions are swirling around the institution.

None of this tells us how any senator will vote. But it makes the arithmetic more complicated than simply counting Duterte allies against administration allies.

If other allied senator-judges begin to perceive Cayetano as vulnerable—if they conclude that his Duterte allegiance has become a liability rather than an asset—they don’t necessarily have to change their convictions. They may simply change their calculations. One senator steps away, another notices, and a third calculates.

Suddenly, a political bloc that looked solid begins to crack—not because everyone has changed sides, but because political survival has its own arithmetic.

That is why I would separate the scoreboards. Evidence: Prosecution 65–35. Legal persuasion: Prosecution perhaps 60–40. Senate arithmetic: Too close to call.

The most dangerous mistake would be to confuse the first number with the third.

The prosecution can win the evidence and lose the Senate. The defense on the other hand, can lose the evidence and still win the acquittal. The prosecution ultimately needs sixteen senators to conclude that the evidence establishes an impeachable offense.

The defense does not necessarily need to prove that nothing happened. It needs to persuade enough senators that the prosecution has failed to cross the constitutional threshold. That is a much lower mountain to climb. And so, the impeachment is becoming two trials at once.

Inside the chamber, Duterte is on trial. Outside it, the Senate’s political survival instincts are on trial. The prosecution may not have to flip sixteen senators. It may only have to make loyalty increasingly expensive. And somewhere between the evidence and the arithmetic sits El Diablo, quietly keeping the books. He doesn’t change anyone’s beliefs. He doesn’t tell anyone how to vote.

He simply reminds them: Tomorrow exists. And then, with that wicked little grin: “The bill always comes due.” 😈