ILOILO City – Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN)-Panay has blasted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for keeping silent on the Supreme Court ruling that struck down the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, saying his inaction signals “impunity and contempt for democracy.”
“The President’s silence is not neutrality, it is self-preservation,” said Elmer Forro, secretary general of BAYAN-Panay. “By refusing to speak out, Marcos Jr. shields Duterte from accountability for her misuse of Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) while protecting his own massive allocations from scrutiny.”
The Supreme Court ruling, released just weeks before Marcos Jr.’s recent visit to Iloilo City, declared the impeachment move against Duterte-Carpio “unconstitutional.”
In a statement, the group said the decision “erodes the very accountability mechanism enshrined in the 1987 Constitution, drafted in the wake of the US-Marcos dictatorship to ensure no public official, no matter how powerful, could evade justice.”
Forro stressed that Duterte-Carpio received P612.5 million in CIF in 2022 and 2023, spending P125 million in just 11 days in 2022, while Marcos Jr. has consistently controlled P4.5 billion in CIF yearly since 2022. The proposed 2026 budget, he noted, raises total CIF allocations across agencies to P10 billion.
“We reject the Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of the impeachment process,” Forro said. “Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one. It must remain in the hands of the people through their elected representatives.”
His group contrasted the situation with the plight of the poor: “A poor elderly Filipino was jailed for allegedly stealing three cans of sardines, while VP Duterte walks free after pocketing hundreds of millions in CIF. This is not justice; this is a double standard written in blood and hunger.”
On National Heroes Day, BAYAN-Panay urged Ilonggos and all “freedom-loving Filipinos” to resist what he described as a culture of impunity.
“Our heroes fought tyranny. We must do no less in holding the powerful accountable and ending impunity,” he said, calling on the Supreme Court to reverse its ruling and for the Senate to push forward with an impeachment trial./PN
