Senate slammed: Stop stalling, start VP Sara’s impeachment trial

An opposition lawmaker on Wednesday castigated the Senate’s purported lame excuses to delay the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, arguing that the four-month break of Congress is already ample time to jumpstart proceedings.

Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel, one of the endorsers of the articles of impeachment, insisted that there is no reason for the Senate not to convene as an impeachment court since, aside from the fact that the trial is not legislative in nature, half of the senators who are not running in the midterm elections have flexible schedules.

“If the Senate wants, they can start within the months of February, March, April, and May. Right now, that it's on break, both houses of Congress—Senate and House—are doing nothing,” he said in Filipino.

“It’s very unfair to the people who are working hard, yet the Senate can sit on their job for four months. They will say they are busy? Let’s be honest here as members of the legislature. The senators do not have a fixed schedule [during this break],” he added.

Congress is currently on recess for the election campaign season and will only convene on 2 June, following the 12 May midterm polls.

Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero has been adamant that trying Duterte during the congressional break “legally cannot be done” since the articles of impeachment, which will prompt them to convene as a tribunal, were not referred to the plenary before Congress adjourned on 5 February.

The House of Representatives impeached Duterte on the same day, with 215 lawmakers—more than double the required one-third vote (102 signatories)—voting to endorse the impeachment complaint.

According to Manuel, the Senate cannot cite the congressional break as an excuse because an impeachment trial “is a separate function from legislating,” and senators must immediately sit as judges as mandated by the Constitution.

“The duty of the senators as members of an impeachment court is stated in the Constitution…[They keep on] making excuses like there is a calendar, they are in recess, but the ones who approve that calendar are only legislators themselves,” Manuel averred.

“This means that if [they] really want to set a schedule, they can approve a schedule for an impeachment trial without hiding behind any other excuses and even using the rules to sit on their job,” he concluded.

In a separate interview, former lawmaker and human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares acknowledged that impeachment trials in the past had indeed been delayed, taking “at least a few days up to a maximum of one and a half months” before convening.

However, he lamented that a four- to five-month delay is already “undue.”

“It’s a command to the Senate that once the articles of impeachment are transmitted to the Senate, it shall convene an impeachment court and hold trial forthwith,” he stated.

Colmenares continued, “But the contemplation of the Constitution does not allow for a four- to five-month delay because forthwith for us is considered ‘as soon as possible without delay.’”

A day before Duterte petitioned the Supreme Court on Wednesday to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block her looming impeachment trial in the Senate, lawyers from Mindanao also asked the high court for the same, deeming the impeachment complaint “haphazard and procedurally flawed.”

But one of the House prosecutors, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, argued that there is “insufficient basis” for the SC to issue a TRO.

“The verification that they are questioning was followed word for word as written in the rules. So it is our humble opinion that there’s nothing wrong with the verification,” she told reporters.

“The Constitution gave authority to Congress to promulgate its own rules. And as far as the complaint is concerned, the verification, as written in the rules of the 19th Congress of the Philippines, was followed strictly,” she added.

Earlier, Escudero announced that Duterte’s trial may start in late July after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his State of the Nation Address, coinciding with the opening of the 20th Congress.

However, retired SC Senior Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, warned that the House’s effort to impeach Duterte would go to waste if the Senate fails to take jurisdiction over the case before the new Congress takes over.