Imagine a pilot opening the flight manual after the plane has already taken off, a surgeon searching for the next step after making the first incision, a referee pulling out the rulebook in the dying seconds of a championship game because he suddenly forgot the rules.

You would not call it humility, but you rather call it incompetence.

That is precisely why it should send chills down every Filipino's spine that, in the middle of one of the country's most consequential constitutional proceedings, a senator admitted he had to rely on Google to understand legal terms while sitting as an impeachment judge.

This was not an ordinary Senate session, nor a committee hearing, but rather the impeachment trial of the Vice President—a constitutional process where every senator ceases to be merely a legislator and assumes the role of a judge.

Yet instead of inspiring confidence, one admission exposed an uncomfortable truth: some of the very people entrusted to defend the Constitution appear to be learning it as they go.

No one requires senators to be lawyers. But every Filipino has the right to expect that those who voluntarily sought one of the highest offices in the land would at least prepare for one of its most sacred responsibilities.

The Constitution is not a manual to be consulted only after the trial has begun. It is supposed to be the document they already know by heart.

Instead of watching senators demonstrate command of the Constitution, Filipinos watched one openly admit that he had to search for legal terms while already seated as an impeachment judge.

Sen. Robin Padilla later explained that he sought help from Google because he is not a lawyer. He even joked that while he did not graduate from University of the Philippines or Ateneo, he graduated from the "University of Prison."

But that explanation misses the point.

No one is asking every senator to hold a law degree. The Constitution itself does not require it. What it does require—implicitly through the oath of office—is fidelity to the law and seriousness in carrying out public duties. That seriousness begins with preparation.

An impeachment trial is not where preparation starts—it is where preparation is measured.

Every senator knew long before July that they could be called to sit as impeachment judges. They had weeks—if not months—to read the Constitution, review the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials, consult constitutional experts, and understand the legal framework of one of the gravest proceedings our democracy can undertake.

Instead, the country witnessed an admission that sounded less like diligence and more like cramming.

Some will argue that Google is merely a tool, and they are correct. Lawyers use digital databases, journalists verify documents online, and professors consult electronic libraries. But context matters.

A pilot may consult a manual during training, but he does not flip through it while passengers are already thirty thousand feet in the air. A surgeon may review a procedure before entering the operating room, but he does not pause mid-operation to search for the next step. Likewise, a senator may study the Constitution before an impeachment trial, but he should not be doing so while the proceedings are already underway.

Preparation is what gives the public confidence that those entrusted with immense power know what they are doing. Without it, authority becomes guesswork and governance becomes performance.

Public office should never operate on the principle of "I'll figure it out when I get there."

Yet that has become the defining feature of Philippine politics. We reward popularity over preparation, familiarity over fitness, and charisma over competence. We celebrate authenticity while treating expertise as elitism. The result is a government where being unprepared is excused as being "relatable." But it should not be.

Preparation is not elitism and competence is not oppression.

Expecting senators to understand the Constitution before judging an impeachment case is the bare minimum.

When senators take their oath, they do not promise to do their homework later. They swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. That oath becomes hollow if the document is opened only after proceedings have begun.

Some will dismiss this episode as harmless. It is anything but.

Running a republic is not a last-minute assignment; the Senate is not an open-book examination; and Google was never meant to substitute for constitutional competence.

Because the moment we accept that those entrusted to defend the Constitution can learn it only when they are called to uphold it, we stop demanding excellence from our leaders. And when a nation stops demanding excellence, it starts normalizing incompetence.

That is how democracies decay—not with a coup, not with a single scandal, but with applause for the bare minimum.

The Frontman