Senate junking of Duterte impeachment shows ulterior motive — House spox

The Senate should better not insist on dismissing the impeachment case of Vice President Sara Duterte, pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the motion of the House of Representatives, as doing so will only expose its ulterior motive from the very beginning. 

Speaking with the press ahead of the Senate’s vote on whether or not to outright dismiss the impeachment in compliance with the SC ruling, House prosecution panel spokesperson Antonio Bucoy said it’s puzzling that the chamber is now scrambling to drop the trial when it did not act with haste in the past months despite the Constitution stating that the impeachment shall forthwith proceed.

“It will only show that they are really rushing to terminate this, when before, they were not in a hurry, despite [the Constitution requiring them to] forthwith proceed,” Bucoy said partly in Filipino. “Why are they acting differently now? They want to finish it, dismiss it.”

Bucoy also reminded the Senate to exercise prudence, as insisting on the voting is like preempting the SC’s decision on the House’s motion for reconsideration, which the chamber filed on Monday. Further, he said it would be “a waste of time” because the Senate will nevertheless be compelled to convene as an impeachment court again if the SC reverses the verdict and rules in favor of the House. 

The SC unanimously declared that the Senate has no jurisdiction over the impeachment case since it was unconstitutional, null, and void ab initio (from the beginning) for violating 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.

To recall, Duterte was slapped with three impeachment complaints in barely two weeks in December last year, but was only officially impeached on 5 February after the fourth complaint was signed and endorsed by 215 members of the House. 

The votes overwhelmingly surpassed the one-third threshold to bypass committee hearings and be transmitted directly to the Senate for trial—a shortcut route allowed by the Constitution—and constituted the articles of impeachment.

The SC decision states that the House trampled upon Duterte’s right to due process when it expedited the proceeding, robbing the VP of the opportunity to counter the allegations against her. The House, however, insisted that such a requirement does not exist in the Constitution.

In light of the House’s motion for reversal, the SC reiterated on Tuesday that its unanimous decision on impeachment is immediately executory.

Immediately executory is not equivalent to finality, according to Bucoy. It only allows the Senate to enforce the order, but the same is not absolutely final since it’s still subject to reversal.

“It is not yet final. In other words, there is leeway,” Bucoy said. “The impeachment court should also give way out of respect for the Supreme Court…They should be more cautious and afford the Supreme Court the opportunity to decide on the motion for reconsideration.”

In its motion, the House upheld its position that the one-year bar was not violated because it was the filing of the fourth impeachment complaint, constituting the articles of impeachment, that caused the one-year prohibition to take effect.

This contravenes the high court’s verdict that the articles were barred because the House’s putting the first three complaints in the archive rendered it “effectively terminated and dismissed,” which triggered the one-year bar.

The House argued that the SC, in effect, introduced a new interpretation of the one-year, which the SC itself outlined under Francisco v. House of Representatives and Gutierrez v. Committee on Justice. 

Under the jurisprudence, initiation only takes place after the referral of the impeachment complaint to the House Committee on Justice or by the filing with the secretary general by at least one-third members of the entire House.