120 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy A verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen upon the resolution or endorsement by any member thereof, which shall be included in the Order of Business within ten session days, and referred to the proper Committee within three session days thereafter.xxx A vote of at least one-third of all the members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. xxx The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide cases of impeachment.xxx No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. (1987 Constitution of the Philippines, Article XI, (2, 3, and 6). This seemingly judicial process is actually highly political. Scholars of constitutional law observe that the influence of the President over Congress had blocked efforts to impeach President Quirino (Sinco 1962: 377-79). Both houses of Congress are composed of political leaders. The speaker and senate President are supported by the majority of the members of Congress, usually through a coalition of parties. This coalition is generally aligned with the President. It is this coalition which shields the President from impeachment. The aborted impeachment of President Estrada in just a little over two years into his term of office showed that the he had initially the support of the members of the House of Representatives. The damning revelations of his inner circle, like Governor Chavit Singson and Atong Ang, together with the earlier expose of the Center for Investigative Journalism, shaped the public perception that he received jueteng payola, manipulated the stock market through government financial institutions, and received money from ghost projects in Ilocos Sur. This formidable public perception apparently gained the required number in the House of Representatives to declare that the complaint sufficient in form and substance, and sent to the Senate for trial. In the Senate, the prosecution was in the process of establishing its case by presenting the witnesses against Estrada. The trial got stalled when the defense questioned the acceptability of a sealed envelope, purportedly to establish the alias used by the President in laundering the bribes he received from jueteng. The Senate vote on this issue showed that there was no 2/3 votes of the members of the Senate that are required to convict him. The most likely outcome of the trial, the not-guilty verdict, became plain for everyone to see. The prosecution panel walked out of the trial. The Senate President resigned. And these events threw the impeachment process in disarray and aborted the trial. The institutional framework failed to perform its function. Through text messages and cell