Former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said that while it is easy to eliminate Vice President Sara Duterte through an impeachment where the vote requirement is “artificially lowered,” he said it would be better to beat her at the polls and then prosecute her for her alleged transgressions.
In a Facebook post, Hilbay warned that an impeachment trial where the vote requirement is changed to “legalize a desired (even desirable) result” could lead to trouble
“But the consequence is to foster even more hatred, which will then be expressed one way or another, probably in a form that results in violence,” he said.
He said the harder path would be to beat them in an election and prosecute them later for alleged crimes, but this would help rebuild the country.
“The harder path is to beat them in an election and then prosecute them for their crimes. Hard as it may be, this is the way to build a nation from the ashes of long years of neglect, misdeeds, and mismanagement,” he said.
He said this would involve rebuilding institutions and would inspire the youth as well as competent people to serve.
“Otherwise, we enable a system where those in power do what they do simply because they can—a doom loop where only the psychopaths win,” he said.
Hilbay made the statement after the Senate Impeachment court ruled that the vote to convict remains at two-thirds, but it would be based only the senators who can legally and factually participate.