This is what he said on Richard Heydarian‘s vlog a week ago, a day or so before the People’s Impeachment Movement (PIM) announced the signature drive.
Ronald Llamas. Nabalitaan ko lang na may mga grupo ng mga religious na balak mag-launch ng people’s impeachment movement. … Kung babagal-bagal ang senado, kung ayaw ng senado na mag-convene, kami ang magco-convene, a people’s impeachment, at itong mga articles of impeachment, mga complaints, paguusapan pa namin, kami na mismo, at baka magpapirma kami ng several million signatures. Dahil sabi ng senate president walang clamor … gagawa ng clamor ang mga religious … balita ko next week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY3Av300cnE&t=1830s
Na-excite naman ako, LOL. I guess because it reminded of Chino Roces’s signature campaign in November ’85 to convince Cory to run for president should Marcos call snap elections, and Chino and his peeps gathered 1.2M in less than a month — martial law pa noon! — and the rest is history. I thought that PIM’s launch would signal the immediate start of signature-gathering in church patios and malls and street corners and online websites, as in forthwith, right away.
Alas. The “launch” on the eve of Ash Wednesday was simply an announcement of intent, and their self-imposed deadline for just one (not several) million signatures is June 8, Pentecost Sunday. June 8!!! By then, according to SP Chiz’s proposed calendar, the Senate would have convened as an impeachment court anyway, so what difference would a million sigs make?
Bakit walang urgency, kung “forthwith” ang ipinaglalaban? Anyare?
People were asking na, where do we go to sign? can we offer, volunteer, our spaces to help gather signatures? kailangan kaya may official I.D.s ang mga pipirma? at kung ano-ano pa. Sayang. It was a great idea.
I had imagined that even just a million signatures could be gathered by a well-organized team by the end of March, and the appeal could be for the Senate to convene as an impeachment court early in April, and then to suspend around the 25th, thus giving re-electionists the final two weeks before the May 12 elections to make their final pitches on the ground, and then to resume in June…
And then again, former Senate Prez Frank Drilon said yesterday on ANC’s Hot Copy with Karen Davila that he thinks the religious orgs are “barking at (sic) the wrong tree”. That the appeal should be addressed to PBBM, not SP Chiz.
Drilon. Senate President Escudero cannot start the trial UNLESS the president calls congress to a special session because (it is) the convening of a special session (that) will make the convening of the impeachment trial court compulsory. … But it cannot start today because there is no session. And therefore the remedy is for the president to call a special session. … He can say: I am calling a special session so the Senate can address its constitutional duty to convene an impeachment court. The discretion of the president to call a special session is ABSOLUTE.
Ang problema, while the president has said he is willing to call a special session, he will do so only if or when the Senate requests it, and the senators (except for Koko Pimentel and Risa Hontiveros) are adamant, as in, no way, busy sila sa kampanya. “Too much to ask” of Senators, say pa ni Cynthia Villar. I imagine that the president is on the same page — he dreams of a 12-0 win — and will not be moved by a million, even several million, signatures?
So far, no update from Llamas on the signature drive — no response to Drilon’s advice — not even just to correct himself. Maybe the attitude is, matatabunan naman agad, no one’s keeping track, so he feels free to exaggerate, lalo na kung sa vlog lang naman. Ayos.