An Impeachment Destined to Fail!

The dismissal of the two impeachment complaints against Ferdinand Marcos Jr. came as no surprise. From the very beginning, it was clear that the outcome would be shaped not by evidence, but by political reality. Impeachment may be legal in form, but it is political in nature—and in politics, numbers decide.

The President commands a supermajority in the House of Representatives. Under such conditions, impeachment is almost impossible to advance. When the legislative majority is aligned with the executive, accountability becomes a formality. The decision of the House Justice Committee was not a verdict of justice; it was the result of a balance of power.

But the real reason impeachment was halted goes deeper than loyalty—it is the fear of shared exposure.

Had impeachment proceeded to trial, scrutiny would not have stopped with the President. Congress itself would have been drawn into the spotlight, particularly its role in the National Expenditure Program (NEP). Questions about budget insertions, realignments, and opaque negotiations would have been unavoidable. An impeachment trial would have illuminated not only executive decisions, but also legislative complicity.

In other words, impeachment would have ceased to be a vertical investigation of one leader and become a horizontal reckoning of the entire system—a risk many lawmakers were unwilling to take.

This is why impeachment is often extinguished before facts are fully examined. The system is designed to protect the equilibrium of power. Stability is chosen over truth.

Yet while impeachment failed politically, the moral question remains unresolved.

Dismissing the complaints does not answer how public funds were used, who truly benefited from anomalous projects, or why oversight mechanisms repeatedly fail. Political survival may stop a process, but it cannot erase the reality that there exists a deep and organized system of power and money that remains unpunished.

And if this condition persists—where justice is consistently defeated by numbers and alliances—it becomes painfully clear that many Filipinos will find justice only in their dreams. Power may win the vote, but the truth leaves a stain that cannot be erased.