SC gives Senate 10 days to respond to petition on VP Duterte impeachment trial

The Supreme Court (SC) has asked the Senate to respond within 10 days, with no extension, to a petition seeking the immediate trial of the verified impeachment complaints filed by the House of Representatives against Vice President Sara Duterte.

The SC, during its full court session on Tuesday, 18 February, acted on the petition filed by lawyer Catalino Aldea Generillo Jr., with all the senators, led by Senate President Francis G. Escudero, as respondents.

Once the SC resolution is received by the Senate, the 10-day period to answer is counted.

It was not immediately known if the Senate will be represented by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) or if it will file the comment on its own.

Generillo, in filing his mandamus petition, cited the provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

A mandamus is a special civil action sought by a party “against a tribunal, corporation, board, officer or person unlawfully neglecting the performance of an act which the law specifically requires as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station.”

The impeachment complaints against Duterte were “based on the grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.”

The SC was told by Generillo in his petition that the Senate has “the inescapable constitutional duty to immediately constitute itself into an impeachment court” and start the impeachment trial of Duterte.

He was referring to Section 3(4) of Article XI of the Constitution, which states: “In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.”

The meanings of “forthwith” in the Oxford Dictionary are “immediately,” “at once,” “instantly,” “directly,” “right away,” “straight away,” “now,” “instantaneously,” and “without delay,” Generillo said.

Generillo stressed that the use of the word “forthwith” in the constitutional provision “must be taken, at the least, with some urgency.”

“The honorable members of the Senate, individually or collectively, are not suffering from any kind of disability, physical or mental, that prevents them from constituting themselves into an impeachment court and forthwith conduct public trial to determine whether the Vice President is guilty or not,” Generillo said in the case of the verified complaints against the vice president.

He pointed out: “In the final analysis, the Constitution does not allow the Senate to procrastinate during the period it is on recess whether it shall constitute itself into an impeachment court and try the Vice President.”

The official copy of the verified complaints for impeachment was turned over to the Senate by the House of Representatives shortly before the former adjourned its session on 5 February.