Senate to decide on Duterte impeachment case on August 6

The Senate will decide on the impeachment case of Vice President Sara Duterte on 6 August, Senate President Francis “Chiz’ Escudero announced Tuesday.

Speaking during the resumption of the plenary session, Escudero said the timeline was agreed upon by senators in an all-member caucus held earlier in the day.

“For the record, it was agreed in caucus that the matter will be decided upon by the Senate on August 6, 2025, when we open session on that date,” he said.

He added the delay would “afford ample and sufficient time to the members to study the 97-page Supreme Court decision, excluding the concurring and separate opinions filed by five or six additional magistrates of the Supreme Court.”

The Senate chief was referring to the SC decision declaring the impeachment complaint against Duterte unconstitutional, citing the violation of the Constitution’s one-year bar provision on impeachment proceedings.

‘More time to study’

In a chance interview, Senator Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri, who is now part of the Senate Minority bloc, revealed the timeline was stemmed from Senate Minority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto’s request for more time to study the High Court’s decision.

“Many of our colleagues, like me, are not lawyers. We want to carefully study the more than 90-page Supreme Court decision so that there will be a meaningful debate in the plenary on August 6,” Zubiri said.

“Some others agreed that they really want to dismiss it today. We have colleagues who want to stand up and dismiss it immediately today but they gave in to the request of our colleagues to give it one more week to study it thoroughly, and of course, our discussions will be educated discussions on the issue,” he added.

Zubiri said some of the senators whom he did not name expressed willingness to tackle the impeachment case of Duterte to effectively dismiss it.

“Today, he was going to stand up to move to dismiss, but I won’t say who. Of course, it’s within their group — you can ask members of their group — but they agreed; they all considered the request of all members to set the date to August 6,” he said.