Philippines National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag says the agency is still in the process of investigating the identity of the alleged hitman whom Vice-President Sara Duterte hired to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Taking the witness stand of the impeachment court yesterday, Matibag said the NBI had “persons of interest” who could help lead them to the actual assassin whom the Vice-President allegedly spoke with.

Duterte first said during her infamous virtual press conference on November 23, 2024, that she had reached out to an assassin to kill Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and former speaker Martin Romualdez, if something bad were to happen to her.

• READ MORE: Special Rappler coverage of the Sara Duterte impeachment trial
• Other impeachment reports

“I cannot disclose the identity of our persons of interest because… this is a continuing and open investigation,” Matibag said. “Our investigation will be compromised, and it will endanger our informants on the ground who can provide human intel.”

Lead prosecutor Jinky Luistro conducted the direct examination of Matibag, who said that the agency was treating Duterte’s statement not as a threat, but as a “plan” to kill the chief executive.

The prosecution’s line of questioning led Matibag to link Duterte’s November 2024 statement with two other statements related to an implied beheading of the President:

• On October 18, 2024, Duterte said she had fantasies to decapitate the President.
• On April 12, 2026, Duterte’s brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, told a political gathering of the RAGE Coalition that it wanted Marcos’ head.

The prosecution also played the video of Duterte punching a sheriff when she was Davao City mayor in 2011, and let Matibag read an affidavit of self-confessed Davao Death Squad hitman Arturo Lascañas that implicated the Vice-President in the extrajudicial killings in Davao City.

The pieces of evidence are meant to establish Duterte’s pattern of violence.

Republished from Rappler with permission.

The House of Representatives in the Northern Marianas has voted to impeach Governor Ralph Torres, approving six articles of impeachment against him.

With 15 “yes” votes, four “no” votes, and one abstention, the House passed a resolution impeaching Torres for alleged commission of felonies, corruption, and neglect of duty, in violation of the CNMI Constitution.

Before and during the House session that voted on the impeachment articles, a large crowd made of pro-Torres and pro-impeachment groups gathered around the Legislature to have their voices heard.

• READ MORE: Other Northern Marianas reports

Police were monitoring the crowds at the Legislature.

Representative Christina Sablan, who is running for governor against Torres in this year’s gubernatorial elections, said the impeachment resolution arises out of more than two years of legislative investigation, especially in the last seven months, through the diligent and meticulous work of the House Judicial and Governmental Operations Committee.

Torres immediately came out of the Legislature with a statement lambasting the Democrat Party-controlled House after being impeached.

“It is unfortunate to witness the hatred and the willful spread of misinformation from the mouths of certain individuals, as evidenced by the calls for impeachment and the demonstration held outside of the Legislature.”

Advocating for ‘united Commonwealth’
He added that he had been advocating for his administration and the House to work collaboratively as one united Commonwealth. However, politically-motivated members of the House of Representatives had chosen time and time against this.

“Instead, they have chosen to pursue a witch hunt in order to perpetuate this notion that I am a corrupt leader who does not care for the well-being of my home and its people. Those who know me and who have worked with me know that this could not be true.”

Now the Senate will decide whether to acquit Torres or convict and remove him from office.

The Republican Party, where Ralph Torres is the titular head, controls the nine-member Senate and Torres has reiterated in the past that he has utmost confidence in the upper chamber’s impartiality in the trial.

The Senate will need a two-thirds vote — six votes — to convict and remove Torres.

Governor Torres has become just the second governor in Northern CNMI history to be impeached.

Former governor Benigno Fitial was the first governor to be impeached, when 16 representatives voted for his impeachment in 2013. Fitial resigned before the Senate could start the trial.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) recorded 147 digital attacks in Indonesia during 2020, the majority of which targeted groups that are often critical of the government such as academics, journalists and activists.

“Throughout 2020 we found 147 incidents of digital attacks. As many as 85 percent of attacks were directed at critical groups. One of which was our academic colleagues,” said SAFEnet executive director Damar Juniarto during a discussion titled Freedom of Expression, the Law and the Dynamics of Development last week.

Juniarto said that journalists often experience doxing – the disclosure and dissemination of private data. Activists meanwhile experienced far worse incidents.

• READ MORE: West Papua media freedom articles

Juniarto gave as an example cases in Papua where activists have had their social media accounts taken over by unknown parties. Others have received food deliveries from online delivery apps which were never ordered.

“This kind of situation never occurred during the period of the previous (administration)”, said Juniarto.

Also speaking at the discussion, Airlangga University Faculty of Law lecturer Herlambang P Wiratraman said that the silencing of critics by the authorities had become increasingly complex.

Attempts to gag critics tended to take the form of digital attacks such as doxing, or disclosing and disseminating private data. On the other hand, efforts by censors, persecution and the jailing of critics were still taking place.

Producing hoaxes
“Things today are complex. In concert with technological development the method [used] to silence critics of the organisers of power isn’t by blocking access but through attacks by irrelevant information,” said Dr Wiratraman.

In other words, explained Dr Wiratraman, silencing critics in the digital era was also done by producing hoaxes. And the more complex the silencing of the media becomes the more it influenced the retreat of democracy in Indonesia.

Dr Wiratraman gave an example of when epidemiology expert Dr Pandu Riono from the University of Indonesia criticised the development of covid-19 drugs after which his social media account was hacked.

Then there was the case of Gajah Mada University student and resource persons in a study of the constitution in relation to impeaching the president.

“What became a question mark was that the committee, the discussion organisers could be stopped and [the discussion] closed down through digital attacks,” he said.

“They were even terrorised by means of sending food which hadn’t been ordered using an online motorcycle taxi, visited by unknown individuals, getting door-knocked,” he continued.

Nevertheless, Dr Wiratraman said that these two incidents were not surprising given that similar incidents had happened in the years before.

Journalists arrest
He also touched on the arrest of journalists and documentary film director Dandhy Laksono on the night of September 26, 2019.

Laksono was questioned by investigators from the Metro Jaya regional police special crimes detective directorate over alleged hate speech.

He was bombarded by 14 questions about a tweet on his Twitter account related to Papua and Wamena on September 23, 2019.

“Such as when Mas [Brother] Dandhy Laksono was brought in by police”, said Dr Wiratraman.

“Indeed digital attacks as well as attacks on campus have been unrelenting and even recorded since 2015”, he added.

Translated by James Balowski of IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Mayoritas Serangan Digital Menyasar Akademisi, Jurnalis dan Aktivis”.

The January 6 assault on the US Capitol may have been a fitting end to Trump’s presidency. It was the embodiment of his trademark violation of norms and desacralisation of institutions.

Along with the second impeachment, it was also the logical culmination of four years of violently partisan rhetoric.

Donald Trump is, of course, less the cause but rather the natural expression of a populism run amok, and one for which Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement were the harbingers.

• READ MORE: Trump has been impeached – what happens now?

Still, he is an impressive – and appalling – expression of American populism. As the only representative elected by all Americans, the US president has both institutional and rhetorical power given his unique media exposure.

The “commander-in-chief” is also the “storyteller-in-chief.” His January 6 “Save America” speech is a perfect illustration of the way a populist narrative can sway the masses.

It is essential to understand its mechanism and to recognise its characteristics if we want to prevent a repeat.

Turning the crowd into ‘the people’
Populism is a complex and contested political concept. It is nevertheless identifiable by certain characteristics. First, of course, it often involves some form of demagoguery, a rhetorical device that Donald Trump masters perfectly, as rhetoric professor Jennifer Mercieca has shown.

“You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody,” he told his audience on January 6. He also praised the crowd’s pride and supposed patriotism, calling out “a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts […] an overwhelming pride in this great country.”

But flattery in itself does not define populism.

As political scientist Jan-Werner Müller has demonstrated, what characterises populism is above all a very restrictive and exclusive definition of “the people”. In his inaugural speech, President Trump contrasted the “forgotten people” with a corrupt elite.

When he addressed his supporters on January 6, he said: “You are the real people” which he defined as “the people that built this nation”, and contrary to “the people that tore down our nation”.

Trump’s “American people” are also the people who “do not believe the corrupt fake news anymore”.

As used by Trump, “the people” is both a rhetorical construction and an embodied metaphor found in phrasing like “the incredible patriots here today” and “the magnitude of the crowd” stretching “all the way to the monument in Washington”.

For the president, size is a sign of moral virtue: “As this enormous crowd shows,” he says, “we have truth and justice on our side.”

As many observers have noted, Trump is obsessed with crowd size. One of the very first lies from his spokesperson regarded the size of the 2016 inauguration crowd, how it was bigger than Obama’s in 2009, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

This was the first of thousands of “alternative facts” that came to define Trump’s presidency.

A victimised people
Another characteristic of Trump’s “people” is their victim status. They are the victims of a corrupt system and the “fake news media”.

He also makes a link between “the country that has had enough” and a we who will “not take it any longer” because “that’s what this is all about”.

Trump’s people identify with him through this victimisation. Hence the use of the subject pronoun we. “It’s incredible what we have to go through” he laments, building a cognitive bias that favours adherence to his numerous falsehoods.

Victimisation is an essential element of the populist discourse. It emphasises the innocence and the purity of the people (and their leader). It makes any future action, even illegal, morally justifiable.

“When you catch someone in the act of fraud,” said the president, “you’re allowed to follow very different rules.” In other words, it gives a blank check for illegal actions that will happen next.

An inner enemy
This rhetoric of victimization is also illustrated by the construction of the figure of an enemy who is no longer a foreign outsider but fellow Americans, as I have analyzed thoroughly elsewhere.

In Trump’s “Save America” speech, this enemy was primarily the news media. They “suppress speech,” and even “thought”.

They are the “enemy of the people” and “the biggest problem we have in this country”.

The expression “enemy of the people” is not new: it has its origins in the Roman Republic and was used during the French Revolution. But there is a certain irony in Trump using a term made particularly popular by the Soviet Union while comparing the suppression by the media to “what happens in a communist country”.

This view of the “enemy press” echoes that of Richard Nixon, as outlined in a recent article by RonNell Andersen Jones and Lisa Grow Sun. But Trump is much more vehement in his public attacks.

And the enemies he mentioned are not limited to the press: he also attacked the “big tech” who “rigged the election,” the Democrats and the “radical left” that will “destroy our country,” the Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, and Liz Cheney who refused to back his false claims, or the Supreme Court that “hurts our country”.

An existential threat
The populist discourse also requires the construction of a permanent crisis. The enumeration of numerous enemies leads to an implacable logic: “Our country has been under siege.”

This type of war lexicon is all the more effective that the emotional charge is reinforced with the evocation of children:

“They also want to indoctrinate your children at school by teaching them things that aren’t so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It’s all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy.”

This threat of “indoctrination of children” validates the policy in favour of private schools put in place by the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. It may also echo QAnon’s conspiracy theories that portray Donald Trump as the hero of a struggle against the “deep state” and a supposed cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities baselessly accused of abusing children.

But, more generally, what is at stake is the very existence of the nation: “If you don’t fight like hell,” the president warned, “you won’t have a country anymore.”

So now, said the president, “the American people [are] finally standing up and saying, “No”.

Heroic action: virtuous strength versus shameful weakness
By standing up and fighting, Trump’s “people” can become heroic. It is common for US presidents to rely on the trope of the hero, a figure whose strength is always kept in check by virtue.

Donald Trump presents a very different narrative where heroism is exclusively defined by unchecked strength, to the point that strength is a virtue in and of itself, as I developed previously in my research.

“You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” he repeated, and members of Congress who promised to oppose the certification of votes became “warriors”.

The claim that “We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies” is also a way to refuse to be weak. After repeating the term “weak Republicans” several times, Trump clearly showed he enjoyed this expression, insisting he was going to use the term from then on.

This binary view of strength vs. weakness echoes a very conservative and gendered narrative that appeals to Donald Trump’s base, especially evangelicals: Trump’s hypermasculinity is contrasted to the Democrats’ enlightened masculinity, portrayed as weak and feminine.

An extreme incarnation of this hypermasculinity can be found in the neo-fascist organisation Proud Boys present among his supporters.

At the end of his speech, when Trump encouraged his supporters to take action by going to Capitol Hill, he asked the crowd to “give our Republicans – the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help […] – the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country”.

As the speech reached its crescendo, Trump emphasised his supporters’ strong emotional bond with him, and his with them.

“We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you”, he promised, as if they would be protected by a Christ-like presence that did not even have to materialise – and it didn’t. Instead, as what was now a mob moved toward the Capitol, Trump was driven back to the White House, where he watched the assault unfold on live television.

The remains of the day
The tragic events of January 6 and their aftermath are now well known. Five people died, including police officer Brian Sicknick, who was beaten to death by the pro-Trump mob.

Despite the violent attack, Congress was able to reconvene and formally recognise the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris. But the risk was grave and the wounds deep.

All of this was made possible by Donald Trump ability and willingness to heighten and take advantage of his supporters’ sense of exclusion (economic, social or otherwise), fear of cultural and identity dispossession, and distrust toward US institutions.

Trump’s populist narrative and coded language gave them a feeling of empowerment and encouraged them to imagine that a violent attack on Congress would be a patriotic, heroic act.

This is partly why, despite what happened on Capitol Hill, his approval rating remains at 40 percent. If his popularity among his voters may have slightly declined, it is still close to 80 percent, and about one in five Republicans (22 percent according to Reuters-Ipsos, or nearly 15 million Americans) claims to support the rioters’ actions.

Most importantly, a large majority of them continue to believe what the president has been saying for months: that the election was “rigged”, and that Joe Biden is therefore illegitimately president-elect.

With the second impeachment against Donald Trump and the threat of further attacks by his supporters on American institutions and elected officials in Washington and across the nation, and a pandemic, the next few days, weeks, and even months could prove crucial for American democracy.

By Dr Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris Université. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

President Donald Trump is extremely unlikely to capitulate to pressure to resign in the final days of his presidency. And his Cabinet is equally unlikely to force him out by invoking the 25th amendment of the Constitution, despite calls from the Democrats to do so.

So, in the wake of last week’s insurrection at the US Capitol, which left five people dead and the Trump White House in free fall, the final option available to lawmakers who want to punish the president for his role in encouraging the rioters is impeachment. Again.

The House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against Trump yesterday for “inciting violence against the government of the United States”.

• READ MORE: Does impeachment need a crime? Not according to framers of the Constitution

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the Democrats “will proceed” with impeachment proceedings this week if Vice-President Mike Pence does not respond to a separate resolution calling for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment.

This will no doubt be a complicated task in the waning days of the Trump presidency. No US president has faced impeachment twice. And there are many questions about how the process will play out, given Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the US in just nine days.

Impeachment: a two-step process
This is how the impeachment process works under the Constitution. (Trump will be familiar with this since he has already been through it before on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.)

Impeachment requires both chambers of Congress — the House of Representatives and the Senate — to act. The House has the “sole power of impeachment” for federal officials, and all that is required is a simple majority to initiate proceedings.

The House essentially takes on the role of a prosecutor, deciding if the charges warrant impeachment and a trial.

The Senate is where the actual trial takes place. Under the Constitution, the chamber acts like a court, with senators considering evidence given by witnesses or any other form deemed suitable.

Impeachment managers appointed by the House “prosecute” the case before the Senate and the president can mount a defence. The chief justice of the Supreme Court acts as the presiding officer.

While these proceedings have many of the trappings of an actual court, it is important to bear in mind that impeachment is a political process.

Under the impeachment clause of the Constitution, a president may be removed from office “on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

This language has been the source of considerable debate, with some legal experts, like Trump’s first impeachment lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, arguing that impeachable offences are limited to actual crimes. Others (correctly) disagree.

Conviction requires two-thirds of senators — a deliberately high threshold to prevent politically motivated impeachments from succeeding. No previous impeachment of a president has ever met this bar: Andrew Johnson (1868), Bill Clinton (1998) and Trump (2019) were all acquitted.

Even though some Republican senators have indicated they would vote in favour of impeachment — or at least be open to it — the number is likely nowhere near enough for conviction.

Complicating factors: time, shifting majorities and a difficult process
With only days left before Trump leaves office on January 20, time is of the essence.

The Constitution does not mandate any particular timeline for the proceedings to take place. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated a Senate trial could not begin before January 19, as the Senate is in recess until then.

Moving that date up would require all 100 senators to agree — an unlikely prospect.

But this may not be an obstacle to starting the process. The Constitution is silent on the question of whether a Senate trial can be held after a president has left office. The 1876 impeachment of War Secretary William Belknap for graft after he left office may serve as precedent.

So, if the House votes to impeach Trump before January 20, a trial could theoretically happen after that date. The maths also change slightly in the Democrats’ favour on that day.

The Democrats will take back control of the Senate, albeit on a 50-50 split with incoming Vice President Kamala Harris casting any tie-breaking vote.

Democrats are pushing for impeachment because the Constitution not only allows conviction, but also provides for barring Trump from holding federal office again. This would thwart his ambitions to run for president in 2024 — a prospect not lost on Republicans with the same goal.

The Constitution does not stipulate how many senators need to vote in favour of disqualifying an impeached official from holding office again, but the Senate has determined a simple majority would suffice.

This tool has also been used sparingly in the past: disqualification has only occurred three times, and only for federal judges.

The bigger hurdle, however, is that it still requires Trump to first be convicted of impeachment by a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

Political implications of impeachment
Biden has remained lukewarm at best to suggestions of a Senate trial after January 20. Such proceedings would allow Trump to style himself a political martyr to his followers even more than is already the case.

This would distract from the critical goals Biden has for his first 100 days and beyond: tackling spiralling COVID infection numbers and the country’s lagging vaccination program, providing immediate financial relief to struggling families, rejoining international climate action efforts and repairing the damage done to the fabric of government by the Trump administration. Last, but not least, it would make confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet picks more difficult.

Achieving these goals while Trump sets off the political fireworks he so cherishes is implausible.

The Democrats have floated the idea of impeaching Trump before January 20, but not sending the article of impeachment to the Senate for trial until weeks later — or even longer — to give Biden a chance to get started on these initiatives. But a distraction is a distraction no matter when it happens.

Democrats would also do well to remember that political fortunes can change. It’s understandable to want to punish Trump for his actions, but
rushing into a political trial in the Senate, which Democrats are bound to lose, may have unintended consequences for the future.

What’s to stop the Republicans from pursuing impeachments of future Democratic leaders they disagree with, even in the face of certain defeat in the Senate? This could poison the political atmosphere even further.

Democrats may also want to consider the fact that Trump could face federal charges for allegedly inciting the violence at the Capitol or state charges for urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat to Biden.

While this outcome is far from certain, the chances of conviction in a court of law would likely prove to be less toxic politically for both Democrats and Republicans alike.

This story has been updated to add Democrats formally introducing an article of impeachment on January 11.

By Dr Markus Wagner, associate professor of law, University of Wollongong. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

As armed supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump forced their way into the United States Capitol last week on the day of the final electoral count, the irony of such scenes playing out in the seat of democracy was not lost on netizens of the Caribbean, where Haiti, to the north of the archipelago, was one of the countries Trump referred to as a “shithole” back in 2018.

However, the breach, which Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said was carried out by “domestic terrorists,” did not achieve its intended goal.

Once the chaos was contained, the congressional session resumed and Joe Biden was confirmed as the next president of the United States — but discussion on the state of America’s democracy is raging on with moves to impeach Trumnp an unprecedented  second time.

• READ MORE: Far-right groups in US celebrate Capitol riot as ‘a revolution’

The Black Lives Matter movement continues to have a great deal of resonance in the region. The disparity, therefore, between how white Trump supporters were treated and how Black Americans are regularly handled by police came into sharp focus.

Trinidadian Renee Cummings, a member of the diaspora living in the United States, said on Facebook:

Were these protesters Black we would be discussing dead bodies at the U.S. Capitol and not a breach of security.

Kathryn Sollmeyer-Wight addressed both Trump’s “shithole country” sentiment and America’s race relations in one fell swoop:

This is the USA, not a 3rd world country?
If these were folks who looked like George Floyd it would have been another story.

Sharing the image of a tweet from rapper 50 Cent, which showed the National Guard stationed in front of the Lincoln Memorial during protests over the killing of George Floyd on June 2, 2020, Dionne Ligoure quipped:

Leaving this right here because I am SURE Facebook will suspend my account if I say anything further ….

Trinidadian Twitter user Sophie Wight added, sharing a photo of a protestor carrying the Speaker’s podium:

I’m not sure I have ever seen such delusion, privilege and idiocy in one image.

And how much ya wanna bet he will just get to laugh about this with friends for the rest of his life? He’s unlikely to be shot and killed, and he knows it. It’s all over his face. https://t.co/F7mM5ypJRe

— Sophie Wight (@SophieKMW) January 6, 2021

For Trinidadian musician Omari Ashby, who dubbed the event an “attempted coup”, the situation was clear:

America turns its ass to the world and spreads its racist plumage like some kind of nazi-esque peacock.
#shitholecountry

Making comparisons
Meanwhile, Jamaican social media users, who are very sensitive to the US government’s travel advisories that warn of crime and violence on the island, couldn’t resist gloating:

Travel Advisory #1
Jamaicans should avoid the Washington D.C area in light of the recent flare up in violence and what can be described as terrorist activities. If you have to traverse the area, please do so with the most extreme caution. pic.twitter.com/HYmdb0EJfV

— ST. ANN 360 (@stann360) January 7, 2021

Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ press secretary also weighed in:

Jamaica. We’re doing well. Lots to improve but we’re doing well. The fallacy we believe is the grass is greener on the other side. Truth is, despite our problems and hardships, the grass is green right here. Water it. Let’s all work to build Jamaica #Democracy #StrongerTogether

— Naomi Francis (@PressSecOPMJa) January 6, 2021

Not everyone agreed with the happy comparisons, however:

I wish we could separate issues. When we say we are proud of Jamaica in comparison to what has been happening in the US, we are speaking of the usually smooth transfer of power. We are not saying Jamaica as a whole is some utopia, yes we have many other issues.

— Sir Gregory (@gregzry) January 7, 2021

Twitter user Kerry-Ann Morgan was stunned that President Trump could not accept his loss:

Jamaicans where you all at?

Very proud to be a Jamaican

We lose elections and we bawl and cuss how them tief yes but you would never see us behaving this way.

We rather say we sick and can’t attend the swearing-in

— Kerry-Ann Morgan (@patrioticjam) January 6, 2021

Even Jamaican diaspora leaders called the storming of the Capitol “un-American.”

Regional leaders comment
Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Kamina Johnson-Smith, faced criticism after sending what one radio talk show host described as a “wishy washy” tweet:

We note with deep concern today’s developments in Washington D.C. We continue to follow the events and trust that there will be a prompt return to normalcy in this important neighbour and #democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

— Hon. Kamina J Smith (@kaminajsmith) January 6, 2021

However, the Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley, issued a more strongly worded statement on behalf of member states:

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is deeply saddened and concerned at the unprecedented scenes that unfolded at the Capitol Building in Washington DC, USA, during the certification of the votes of the presidential elections by the US Congress.

The storming of the US Congress was a gross affront to democracy and the rule of law in a country which has been viewed as a leading light of representative governance the world over.

CARICOM looks forward to the restoration of order and the continuation of the process of transfer of power in a peaceful manner.

Here come the memes
As expected, much of the Caribbean blogosphere responded with humour, though the underlying tone was definitely one of relish in seeing the mighty fall.

One Trinidadian Facebook user posted an image of one of the insurgents and added text that made his attire look like an advertisement for a costume with a popular Carnival band:

The Carnival-themed memes continued with a clever take on the hit soca song “Stage Gone Bad.” The image shows soca stars Kes and Iwer George singing the tune in the forecourt of the Capitol as Trump supporters scale its walls:

Meanwhile, Trinidadian journalist Kejan Haynes posted on Twitter:

Trump trying to stop the protests pic.twitter.com/UjkSvGQKXM

— Kejan Haynes (@KejanHaynes) January 6, 2021

Facebook user Nicole Philip Greene chose to go with a limerick:

A mob of the MAGA persuasion
Conducted a statehouse invasion.
Though heavily armed,
They parted unharmed,
And that’s how you know they‘re Caucasian.

On WhatsApp, meanwhile, one widely shared image of the American flag — with a banana where the stars should be — said it all:

All jokes aside, however, regional netizens were well aware of the gravity of the situation, and how it has been allowed to build up, unchecked. Responding to the news that channels like Twitter and Facebook—which continued to allow Trump to have a voice throughout his presidency regardless of fact checking—had now blocked him, many social media users simply found the gesture a case of too little, too late.

Janine Mendes-Franco is regional editor, Caribbean, of Global Voices, and is based in Trinidad and Tobago. Emma Lewis is a writer, blogger and social media activist living in Kingston, Jamaica. This article was first published by Global Voices and is republished by Asia Pacific Report under a Creative Commons licence.

After the ousting of the Philippines’ Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the six justices who voted against the quo warranto petition have claimed the decision has made the Office of the Solicitor-General more powerful.

The justices raised their concern in their separate dissenting opinions following the Supreme Court’s 8-6 unprecedented and historic vote in favour of the petition – a prerogative warrant – on Friday.

Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo wrote in his dissenting opinion that the decision of the majority had granted the Solicitor-General (SolGen) powers to “remake the composition” of the High Court, “causing the removal of its members”.

READ MORE: Quo warranto v elected impeachable allowed, says Supreme Court

“With the SolGen wielding a quo warranto sword of Damocles over the heads of these officers, the Filipino people cannot be assured that they will discharge their constitutional mandate and functions without fear or favor,” said Del Castillo.

Without such assurance, there can be no guarantee that the primordial interest of the sovereign people is promoted.”

Del Castillo called the SolGen’s move a form of “constitutional adventurism”.

The quo warranto petition to remove Sereno from office was on the basis of an alleged invalid appointment.

The decision is “immediately executory without need for further action,” SC spokesperson Theodore Te said during Friday’s press briefing.

‘Violated requirements’
Nine of the justices said she violated requirements on the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN). The same number of justices ruled that quo warranto was the proper remedy in the ouster of Sereno.

This is the first time that the Supreme Court has removed its own chief, in a petition widely slammed for violating Sereno’s constitutional right to an impeachment process.

Sereno is the second chief justice to be removed from office after Renato Corona was ousted in 2012. He was found guilty of betraying the public trust and committing culpable violation of the Constitution.

Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo’s sentiment was echoed by the dissenting opinions of Associate Justices Marvic Leonen and Benjamin Caguioa.

Lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leaders Franklin Drilon, a former justice secretary, shared the same concern.

The others who voted against the petition are Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe.

Quo warranto or impeachment?
The six dissenters all agreed that impeachment was the only way to unseat an impeachable officer like Sereno.

Del Castillo stressed that allowing the quo warranto proceeding “impairs the independence of constitutional offices”.

Bernabe wrote in her opinion that the OSG should have questioned the discretion of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to include Sereno in the shortlist of chief justice applicants.

Bernabe pointed out that the OSG “voluntarily admitted that the JBC’s grave abuse of discretion is not at all an issue.”

In his dissenting opinion, Velasco relayed the same sentiment.

“There was no attempt to assail and contest much less nullify the JBC’s findings that the respondent possessed all qualifications, the JBC’s decision must stand,” Velasco said.

Yes to quo warranto but…
Velasco said that the “remedy of quo warranto is available to unseat, in the extreme, even an impeachable officer”.

However, he clarified that the one-year prescribed period for filing such a petition had lapsed. He said that Sereno’s nomination and appointment “has not been timely challenged, much less nullified,” and that “the findings and qualifications should be respected.”

Velasco insisted that the OSG had to file a petition for certiorari against the JBC before seeking Sereno’s removal from office.

Bernabe also said that impeachment was not the sole move of removing impeachable officials as it would be “clearly absurd for any of them to remain in office despite their failure to meet the minimum eligibility requirements”.

She said that there “should be a remedy to oust all our public officials, no matter how high-ranking they are, or how critical their functions may be,” but after clear “determination that they have not actually qualified for election or appointment”.

Bernabe stressed that the JBC’s rigorous process was lenient on the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) requirement. In fact, none of the applicants were able to submit all SALNs up to 2012.

Despite voting for the retention of Sereno, Bernabe said she made no claim that Sereno “is or is not a person of integrity.”

“In fact, if there is one thing that is glaringly apparent from these proceedings, it is actually the lack of respondent’s candor and forthrightness in the submission of her SALNs. Integrity must be threshed out in the appropriate case for certiorari,” Bernabe said.

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Sri Bintang Pamungkas was arrested in his home in Cibubur, in the outskirts of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, on early Friday morning, December 2.

The civil society leader of People Power Indonesia 2016 – a group that aims to repeal the constitution before it is amended – was supposed to join the rally against Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama later that day.

Ahok, an ethnic Chinese-Christian politician, a double minority in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is accused by conservative Muslim groups of committing blasphemy.

Pamungkas and 9 others were accused of attempting to impeach the current government led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Among them are high profile individuals including rock musician Ahmad Dhani; human rights activist Ratna Sarumpaet; retired two-star Army general Kivlan Zein; and Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, sister of former president Megawati. They were arrested on treason charges under Article 107 of the penal code (KUHP).

The mobile phone video of the arrest Sri Bintang Pamungkas, filmed by his wife.

In a short video circulating on social media, Pamungkas was enjoying his cup of morning coffee on his porch when police officers handed him the warrant.

“Honey, I’m being arrested,” Pamungkas said to his wife who recorded the video on her mobile phone.

“Why?” his wife, Ernalia, was heard saying from behind the camera.

“They have the power to. Of course they can,” Pamungkas replied.

Pamungkas and People Power originally planned to occupy the parliament building, asking the council to revoke Jokowi’s presidency for, according to him, the former Jakarta governor’s inadequacy to follow the “people’s mandate”.

Seven people were released later that day because the police did not have sufficient evidence. Pamungkas in still in detention, along with two others who are still behind bars for allegedly insulting the President on social media, and violating the Internet Transaction Law.

Racial undertones
The December 2 rally was the third in a series of protests demanding Ahok to step down from his post as governor, for his remarks that allegedly insulted Islam.

The controversy started in September 2016 when he accused his opponents of fooling the electorate by misusing a Quranic verse, to sway voters to not vote for him in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

He has apologised for the remarks but is still being prosecuted for blasphemy.

Ahok is now a suspect and faces his first trial hearing next Tuesday. If proven guilty he could be jailed for up to 5 years.

But the issue has since spiraled to include other aspects. Critics have since accused the President —who was inaugurated two years ago—  of being inadequate to manage the country. Ahok became governor after Jokowi won the presidential election in 2014. As Jokowi’s deputy governor at the time, Ahok assumed the position.

Ahok himself is an outlier in the Indonesian political landscape. He was the former regent of Belitung Timur, a small region in Sumatera island, and was also a member of parliament before running as Jokowi’s deputy – but has always been considered as the “outsider” who came to the capital.

‘Crush the Chinese’
During the 200,000-people-strong rally on 2 December, some posters read, “Jail Ahok” and “Crush the Chinese”.

The race card used against Ahok is not new within Indonesia’s politics. It is deeply rooted in the New Order regime under former general Soeharto’s authoritarian regime. President Soeharto —who ruled Indonesia for more than 3 decades— banned expressions of Chinese culture and politically segregated the Chinese, because of suspected ties to communism.

Rally organisers and protestors used the Islam card which is an appealing pull for Indonesian Muslim voters.

One of Ahok’s opponents in next year’s elections, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, is the son of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who led the country from 2004-2014.

Conservative Islamist groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) —one of the main rally organizers— have on social media openly supported Yudhoyono’s gubernatorial candidacy.

Shrinking civic spaces
Social media users in Indonesia are divided on the arrests. Some applaud the police force for attempting to prevent an impeachment attempt, while others see it as a violation of human rights.

“There seems to be no clear grounds for the arrest of these people,” said Benny Agus Prima, Human Rights Defender Programme Associate at the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).

Prima stressed that the government must protect its people’s rights to express their freedom of expression.

“The rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are constitutional rights and guaranteed by international human rights law,” he said. “Exercising those rights is a foundation of democratic society.”

The freedom to associate and to assemble, to express written and and oral opinions in Indonesia, are regulated under Article 28 of the 1945 constitution.

If proven guilty, those arrested could be jailed for 15 years up to a life sentence.

Prima regretted the detention of the individuals, which he said was a sign of the shrinking civic space, not only in the country but also in the region as well.

Case4Space
Civic space is where people can freely exercise their basic civil rights, such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association. This kind of problem is not unique to Indonesia.

During the 3-day conference entitled “Youth at the heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case4Space” held in Bangkok, Thailand, panelists shared how there are 3.2 billion people living in countries where civic space is under threat.

“We’re seeing a trend of shrinking civic space in Asia Pacific with recent examples of the criminalization of activists,” Prima said, citing an example of Maria Chin Abdullah of Malaysia.

Abdullah is the leader of the Malaysian pro-democracy alliance Bersih, who was detained in November 2016 for organizing a mass rally calling on Prime Minister Najib Razak to resign over a corruption scandal.

But in the end, according to Prima, what Pamungkas and his peers did was still in accordance to the law. “They demanded the parliament to review Widodo’s presidency, not bearing arms asking [him] to step down,” Prima said.

The arrests, he said, should not have taken place in the first place as it would take Indonesia —a country who adopted democracy 16 years ago— back to autocratic state.

Rozinul Aqli, an Indonesian student at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, also voiced his disapproval in Twitter, saying, “[Widodo] is increasingly becoming more comfortable in borrowing a page from Soeharto’s playbook”.

“Ideally, there should be clear violent acts for something to deserve the label of treason,” Rozinul said in an email to Rappler.

“In practice, however, this article [Article 107 of the penal code] has been used to criminalize many activists that were not, strictly speaking, threatening national security,” he said.

Freedom of expression at risk
Prima further said this case would set a bad precedent for human rights defenders.

“What I fear the most is, this criminalisation will restrict human rights defenders’ freedom of expression,” he said.

Although he also noted that the people who were arrested should respect Ahok’s freedom expression as well.

“When we’re talking about freedom of expression, we should respect others’ freedom to express their thoughts as well,” Prima said. “We can’t force those who, let’s say, commit human rights violations by also violating others’ human rights.”

Rozinul added that rubber articles, such as Article 107 of the penal code, are problematic as they deprive citizens the right to legal certainty.

“If some of us are alarmed by this development, it is because we know that using rubber articles to silence dissents was one of the cornerstones of the New Order regime,” he said.

Abdul Qowi Bastian is a staff editor for Rappler based in Bangkok.

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