The Supreme Court (SC) has acted on the petitions filed challenging the impeachment complaint of Vice President Sara Duterte.
In a resolution dated July 8, the SC en banc announced that it had consolidated or merged the two separate petitions assailing the impeachment complaint.
Duterte, the first Vice President in history to be impeached by the Lower House, filed her own petition with the High Court in February, asking the tribunal to block her trial.
Mindanao lawyers led by Apollo Quiboloy legal counsel Israelito Torreon and former Duterte official Martin Delgra also filed their separate petition in the same month. Davao City officials — like former vice mayor-turned-councilor Melchor Quitain Jr., along with city councilors — were also named as petitioners in the petition of Torreon and Delgra.
But apart from consolidating the petitions, the High Court also directed Congress — House of Representatives and the Senate — to comment on the petitions and submit additional information related to Duterte’s impeachment. Requiring the submission of comments is a typical part of proceedings in petitions or cases.
SC Notice to Comment Sara Impeachment by Rappler on Scribd
The SC gave the respondents a non-extendible 10-day period to respond to the requirements.
Here’s the summary of the information requested by the High Court from Congress and the context surrounding it:
The complaints
- status of the first three complaints filed by private citizens
- the exact date(s) when the complaints filed by the private citizens were endorsed by a member or members of Congress
The first impeachment complaint against Duterte was filed by a coalition of various organizations on December 2, 2024. These groups include Magdalo, Mamamayang Liberal, Tindig Pilipinas, families of drug war victims, and leaders of the Catholic Church, who wanted the Vice President impeached for betrayal of public trust, bribery, graft and corruption, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other high crimes.
It was Akbayan Representative Perci Cendaña who endorsed the first complaint.
Only a few days later, the second complaint followed. This time, it came from progressives like former lawmakers Neri Colmenares, Liza Maza, and Sarah Elago, among others. They wanted the Vice President impeached over betrayal of public trust due to Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds.
The Makabayan bloc — then composed of ACT Teachers Representative France Castro, Gabriela Representative Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Representative Raoul Manuel — endorsed the complaint.
The third complaint came from various Catholic priests, and was endorsed by House Assistant Minority Leader Gabriel Bordado of Camarines Sur 3rd District and Deputy Minority Leader Lex Colada of party-list group AAMBIS-OWA.
The filing of an impeachment complaint by a citizen, endorsed by any member of the House, is among the three ways of initiating an impeachment case. The other two are through the filing of a complaint by a member of the House, or the filing of a verified complaint of impeachment filed by at least one third of the lower chamber.
Transmittal of complaints questions
- For complaints filed by private citizens, the discretion of the secretary general to decide when to transmit to the speaker of the House of Representatives any impeachment complaint properly endorsed by a member or members of Congress;
- For complaints filed by private citizens, the basis and authority of the secretary general to refuse the transmittal of the complaints for impeachment to the speaker for inclusion in the Order of Business within 10 session days from the time it was properly endorsed by a member of the House of Representatives;
- For complaints filed by private citizens and regardless of the legal position of the respondents, the number of session days that lapsed from the time the complaints were properly endorsed by a member of the House to its transmittal to the speaker of the House of Representatives and its inclusion in the Order of Business
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate, the office or committee that prepared the draft of the Articles of Impeachment and when was it completed;
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate, when it was circulated to the members of the House of Representatives and whether or not it was circulated to all House members.
The SC is asking what happened to the first few complaints — the main point of contention in Duterte’s impeachment. In her SC petition, Duterte argued that the House violated the “one-year bar rule” in the 1987 Constitution, which states that “impeachment proceedings [cannot] be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”
Duterte raised this issue because House Secretary General Reginald Velasco did not “immediately” refer the verified impeachment complaints to the Speaker, as mandated by House rules, even if the complaints had already been verified and were ready for transmittal. Under the rules, the Speaker is supposed to include the transmitted complaints in the plenary’s order of business within 10 session days. (READ: How did gov’t counter Sara’s claim that impeachment is unconstitutional?)
Nothing happened with the first three complaints; they never passed the chamber’s justice committee because of Velasco’s decision. Nevertheless, Duterte got impeached through a fourth impeachment complaint backed by 215 of 306 House lawmakers.
Going by the principle of the one-year bar rule, none of the first three complaints were initiated, but Duterte mentioned the rule because she claimed Velasco “deliberately [froze] the entire initiation and impeachment process,” rendering the one-year bar rule of the Constitution “futile and meaningless.”
The Office of the Solicitor General, representing the House, said that the delay in the referral was not tantamount to initiation and that none of the first three complaints were referred to the justice committee.
Evidence, articles of impeachment queries
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate, when were they circulated to the members of the House, and were they accompanied by evidence for each Article charged, or was there a committee report for the information of the members to decide on whether or not to endorse;
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate and for evidence supporting each and every Article, was Vice President Sara Z. Duterte given the opportunity to be heard on the evidence shared with House members;
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate, did each of the members of the House have time to peruse the charges and the evidence before affixing their consent;
- For Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate, when were they included in the Order of Business of the House of Representatives for consideration by the entire plenary?
In their petition, the Mindanao lawyers raised the question of due process in the proceedings, claiming that the House did not consider due process in impeaching the Vice President. They also claimed that the lawmakers who voted to impeach her may have failed to assess the evidence in the complaint.
“The verification process requires that it should be personally known, the allegations are personally known and studied by the respective congressmen who signed it…. We feel and we have reasons to believe that some of the congressmen were not even able to peruse the complaint as well as assess the evidences attached in the impeachment complaint,” Torreon said in February.
When the impeachment complaint reached the Senate and the latter convened into an impeachment court in June, the chamber approved a motion that ordered the remand or return of the articles of impeachment to the House. Experts said this move was unconstitutional.
The Senate also set two conditions before it resumes the impeachment trial. First, the House must certify that it did not violate any constitutional rule when it impeached Duterte, and second, for the House of the 20th Congress to express its willingness to still push through with the trial.
On June 25, the House submitted a pleading to the Senate, asserting that its impeachment of the Vice President was constitutional. – Rappler.com
