Impeachment is supposed to be more of a political procedure than a strictly judicial one. That is the reason the power to impeach is lodged in the political branches of government, rather than in the courts. If impeachment were intended to be judicial, then the Constitution would have assigned the task of impeaching a chief justice of the Supreme Court to another court, like the Sandiganbayan. Similarly, the impeachment of a president would be tried not by the Senate but perhaps by the Supreme Court itself…

In what way then is impeachment a political exercise? It is political in the sense that, as a form of discourse (or as a way of seeing and communicating), its goal is to arrive at a policy decision that binds the whole society. In this it is governed by a separate code. Whereas Law is guided by the distinction between legal and illegal, Politics is steered principally by the distinction between majority and minority, and between government and opposition. These two sides of the political divide are supposed to represent competing conceptions of what is good for the nation. That is the essence of politics. Thus, with regard to the on-going impeachment, the political question is: Will the removal from office of Chief Justice Renato Corona be good for the country or not?

- Randy David, Political but fair, Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 29, 2012