Campaign period delaying Senate trial?

A House lawmaker on the prosecution panel for Vice President Sara’s impeachment trial hopes the election campaign period is not the reason the Senate is adamant about delaying the proceedings.

In an interview on Wednesday, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, one of the 11 members of the prosecution team, said this would be fair to the House prosecutors who will be running for reelection but are willing to set aside their campaigns for the impeachment trial.

“Because we are in the prosecution, we also have our own battles. Nevertheless, we are appreciating this as a constitutional duty. So, in spite of the demands of the campaigns in our respective districts, we are all ready to be engaged or to engage in this prosecution work,” Luistro said in Filipino.

“I wish to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it is not really the campaign period that is hindering the Senate from convening right away,” she added.

In an interview on Tuesday, Senator JV Ejercito said the Senate cannot be blamed or rushed to take up the impeachment, considering that half the 24 sitting senators are already busy campaigning.

“Half of our colleagues are not here. It’s campaign break already. So, that’s a bit difficult and tricky. How can you complete the impeachment court if half is campaigning? You cannot blame them,” he told reporters in Filipino and English.

Each day counts

“If you are a candidate, each day really counts. Ninety days to go around the Philippines? That’s not sufficient... I think the problem will be how to complete it now that we are on a campaign break,” he said.

The senator put the blame on the House of Representatives which delayed the transmittal of the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

He said the House “had all the time in the world” to forward the impeachment complaints much earlier and not at the last minute when the Senate had adjourned for the campaign period.

The House impeached Duterte on 5 February, during its last session day. The fourth impeachment complaint, outlining the offenses of Duterte, was then transmitted to the Senate, after the first three complaints that were filed in December had been archived.

Contrary to the position of their counterparts in the Senate, Luistro asserted that the upper chamber can convene even during the congressional break because “impeachment is different from a legislative process.”

“The timeline is really not an issue for me. The legislative work of Congress, we really need to do that while in session. However, impeachment proceedings can be done even when we are on recess,” she said. “Just like in the lower house, this is a collegial decision that they need to come up with.”

Escudero’s reason

Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero has maintained that holding a trial during the break “legally cannot be done” since the articles of impeachment — which would serve as the basis for the impeachment court to be convened — were not referred to the plenary before Congress adjourned last week.

Earlier, lawyer Domingo Cayosa, former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, said the Senate can convene as an impeachment court because the four-month adjournment of Congress is only for their legislative function.

“The impeachment court is a non-legislative function and there is jurisprudence in the Supreme Court wherein the Court differentiated the legislative and non-legislative functions,” Cayosa said.

Iloilo Rep. Lorenz Defensor, also a House prosecutor, argued that the Senate’s acceptance of the articles of impeachment was not the act of accepting it as part of a legislature but as an impeachment court.

“It doesn’t matter if Congress is in session or on break. Once [the articles of impeachment] are transmitted to the Senate, they shall receive it as a court already,” the lawmaker noted.

Defensor stressed that House members were not overeager to try Duterte as they just want to do things by the book as guided by the Constitution.

“That is in our Constitution. It has been clearly and repeatedly said, even by our constitutionalists and experts, that the trial shall forthwith proceed, meaning immediately,” Defensor said.

The articles of impeachment are anchored on Duterte’s alleged plot to have Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez killed, as well as on the purported misappropriation of P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to her office and the Department of Education during her tenure as its secretary.

Adjourning sine die

The Senate is expected to try her after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his State of the Nation Address on 28 July before the newly sworn-in members of the 20th Congress.

The 19th Congress is set to adjourn sine die on 13 June. One month thereafter, a new batch of lawmakers — all the district representatives and 12 of the 24-member Senate — will be sworn in, commencing the 20th Congress.

Nonetheless, House prosecutors are not keen on urging Marcos to call for a special session so the Senate impeachment court can convene because this is a breach of the separation of powers.