Complainants in 3rd impeachment rap urge SC to overturn ruling

The Supreme Court was petitioned by complainants in the third impeachment complaint filed before the House of Representatives yesterday to reverse and set aside its 25 July decision declaring unconstitutional the fourth impeachment complaint versus Vice President Sara Duterte for violating the one-year-bar rule and her right to due process.

The movants, in their motion for reconsideration-in-intervention, argued that they have a legal interest to intervene in the case since they stand to be affected by the Court’s ruling.

They noted that the fourth impeachment complaint against Duterte was built on the strength of the first three impeachment complaints, which were archived by the House but were deemed dismissed by the Court in its 25 July decision.

They claimed that any ruling pertaining to the impeachment process of the Vice President also affects the cause of the movant-intervenors as complainants of the third impeachment complaint.

Those who filed the third impeachment complaint and are now movant-intervenors before the SC are Rev. Father Antonio Labiao Jr., Rev. Father Joel Saballa, Rev. Father Ruben Villanuena, and representatives of several non-government organizations such as Stand Up for Good (Sugod), Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), and Samahan ng mga Detainees Laban sa Detention at Para sa Amnesty (Selda).

In calling for the reversal of the Court’s ruling, the movant-intervenors maintained that the House did not violate the one-year-bar rule under Article XI, Section 3(5) of the Constitution, which states that no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.

The movants argued that the House neither neglected nor failed to act on the first three impeachment complaints as these were included in the Order of Business within the required 10 session days.

“The number of complaints filed did not matter. So long as the complaints have been referred within the given period (i.e., 10 session days and 3 session days), the House violated no constitutional provisions,” they stressed.

Though four impeachment complaints were filed before the Secretary General, the movant-intervenors argued that only one initiated the proceeding.

They added that the House of the 19th Congress could still refer the first three impeachment complaints to the Committee on Justice before 30 June 2025. Thus, no constitutional provision was violated after 5 February 2025, when the fourth impeachment complaint was filed.

The petitioners said, “Naturally, to avoid violating the one-year-bar rule, the House did not anymore refer the first three impeachment complaints to the Committee on Justice. Their referral was simply constitutionally barred.”

Likewise, the movant-intervenors argued that Duterte could not claim she was harassed by the first three impeachment complaints since these did not reach the Committee on Justice.

“How exactly was she harassed? How did these complaints threaten her tenure? Why did her tenure need actual protection? Why did the Honorable Court focus on the anti-Harassment Provision instead of the House’s duty to consider and appreciate the first three impeachment complaints,” they pointed out.

Even assuming that the dismissal of the first three impeachment complaints initiated the impeachment proceedings, the movant-intervenors argued this could not bar the filing of the fourth complaint.

The Constitution gives the House full discretion in choosing which complaint to use in initiating the impeachment proceeding, the movants said.

On the due process requirements laid down by the Court for impeachment, the movant-intervenors noted that the House does not exercise quasi-judicial or judicial powers that would require compliance with such guidelines.

According to the movant-intervenors, such a requirement would “unduly burden the impeachment proceedings, which already proved to be the most difficult and cumbersome mode of removing a public officer from office.”

They added that the impeachment process is not a criminal proceeding that requires the application of the due process clause.

“The fact that impeachable officers, including the Vice President, carry some of the most critical and important duties and responsibilities, occupy offices with the highest budget allocation, and are among those with the heftiest public remuneration, must be front and center in any discussion of impeachment and accountability,” the movant-intervenors said.

With this argument, the movants said the Honorable Court is respectfully and vehemently urged to give greater weight to the public wanting to hold their public officers accountable than to public officers wanting to protect their reputation.