Senators' inhibition eyed in Sara impeachment trial

The House prosecution panel confirmed Friday that plans to inhibit some senator-judges, who already purportedly displayed bias at the early stage of Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial, will be on the table once they meet to discuss strategies on or before the 20th Congress formally opens on 28 July. 

Prosecutors Joel Chua and Arnan Panaligan both agreed that the alleged partiality of senators unsupportive of the VP’s impeachment is a cause for concern, taking into account that they are the ones who will render a decision on whether or not Duterte should be removed from office. 

“It is clearly stated in the Senate rules on impeachment that they should exercise neutrality. It is saddening that several senator-judges have already affirmed that they will side with the other party regardless of what happens,” Chua said in an interview.

“What we want is just simple: for the case to proceed and be heard with fairness and impartiality, and expeditiously,” Panaliga stated in a separate interview. 

The actions taken by Duterte’s known allies, Senators Christoper “Bong” Go, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, and Imee Marcos, though no longer came as a surprise, have triggered concerns among progressive legislators, constitutional experts, and civil groups. 

They urged the senators to recuse themselves on alleged grounds that they had already pre-judged it by moving to dismiss the articles of impeachment, citing alleged legal infirmities.

Mamamayang Liberal Rep.-elect Leila de Lima, set to join the panel of prosecutors, believes that while it’s already evident that the said senator-judges are likely no longer to be neutral once the trial proper begins, she emphasized that they could not insist on it unless the concerned senator-judge made it voluntarily.

“Impartiality is not per se a ground for mandatory disqualification, but is a ground for inhibition,” she said in an interview. "So even if a party files a motion to recuse or inhibit, it's still the judge's decision. It depends on whether he has delicadeza, respect for the institutional integrity and dignity of the Senate."

Prosecutor Lorenz Defensor, meanwhile, does not see the need for a recusal of the senator-judges “because an impeachment is a political process and not a judicial process.”

“All we ask is for them to be impartial and allow the prosecution and defense teams to present their case fairly,” he said in a previous interview.

‘Evidence could sway senator-judges’

Despite the purported confirmation bias being portrayed by some of the senator-judges, Chua expressed belief that the compelling pieces of evidence against the impeached VP shall take precedence.

While he acknowledged the presence of partisan efforts, he pointed out that it’s premature to question the impartiality of the senator-judges, as they have yet to thoroughly examine the full set of evidence to be presented by the prosecution.

“I strongly believe that once we are given the opportunity to properly present our evidence, the leanings of our senators-judges will change,” Chua averred.

Go, Dela Rosa, and Marcos are among the 17 senator-judges, excluding Senate President Chiz Escudero, the presiding judge, who agreed that there is a need to return the verified impeachment complaint that they had received from the House as early as 5 February. 

The consensus reached on Tuesday, shortly after the Senate had just convened as an impeachment court, was triggered by concerns that the House-initiated impeachment complaint might have breached procedural rules, particularly the one-year bar rule. 

The Senate impeachment court made a condition with the House that they would remand the case pending the lower chamber’s certification that it did not violate Article XI, Section 3, Paragraph 5, which prohibits the filing of more than one impeachment case against the same official within a one-year period. 

The prosecutors, however, deferred the acceptance of the remanded impeachment complaint, maintaining that they had “fully and strictly” complied with the rules and procedures concerning the impeachment. 

They asserted that the fact that the transmitted impeachment complaint was verified, certifying the same is simply unnecessary. 

What violation?

The impeachment complaint transmitted by the House to the Senate on 5 February was the fourth petition lodged against the VP in a span of only two months. It was endorsed by 214 members of the House.

The VP has contested the impeachment case, alleging that the House circumvented the one-year bar rule because the fourth impeachment complaint came just two months after the first three separate complaints were lodged against her. Her legal team brought the case to the Supreme Court on 18 February. 

Prosecutors, in response, countered that, unlike the first three complaints, the fourth impeachment case was endorsed by more than the required one-third votes of the entire House, allowing it to bypass committee hearings and be transmitted directly to the Senate for trial.

While the Senate’s decision to remand the impeachment complaint will further delay the trial, prosecutors find comfort in knowing that the same will certainly proceed because the upper House has already acquired jurisdiction over the case. 

Escudero has been accused of deliberately stalling Duterte’s impeachment trial in an alleged pursuit of either retaining the Senate presidency in the next Congress or avoiding backlash from Duterte supporters in the 2028 elections.

Duterte was impeached on grounds of graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other high crimes. 

The seven articles of impeachment were primarily anchored on the supposed misappropriation of P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to her office and the Department of Education during her tenure as its secretary, as well as her alleged kill plot against President Marcos Jr.’s family.

The Vice President has long denied corruption allegations involving her confidential funds. She likewise asserted that her assassination remarks against former ally-turned-foe Marcos were merely taken out of context.