A lawmaker said that the unanimous decision of the House Committee on Justice concerning the adoption of its committee report, resolution, and Articles of Impeachment on the complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte was due to a lack of justification to vote otherwise.

Iloilo 3rd District Rep. Lorenz Defensor explained that the absence of Duterte in the Justice panel’s proceedings was a wasted opportunity for her camp to directly confront and answer the allegations presented by the resource persons in its clarificatory hearings.

“The Vice President was given every opportunity to attend and to debunk, maganda sanang pagkakataon yun sabihing mali ang ebidensya o may mas matatag akong ebidensya (it would have been a great opportunity to say that the evidence was incorrect or we have stronger evidence),” Defensor stated.

“We were not given any reason to vote against the impeachment complaint,” he added.

During its hearings into the two impeachment complaints that were deemed sufficient in form and substance, the Vice President was repeatedly invited prior to the presentation of evidence concerning the allegations against her.

The crimes cited in the complaint pertained to Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery and corruption, and verbal threats towards high-ranking officials.

Duterte, however, decided to skip all hearings, with one of her lawyers, Atty. Michael Poa, stating that she would only be amenable to answering any allegations in the “appropriate forum.”

Poa noted that it had been their position from the start, given the petitions that it had filed to the Supreme Court, that questioned the process undertaken by the Committee.

Pick Sides

Now that the Justice panel has decided to transmit its report to the House plenary, all lawmakers are then tasked to vote and decide if the Articles of Impeachment will be transmitted to the Senate, where the impeachment trial will be carried out.

Some lawmakers have since expressed their desire to not participate in the proceedings, with Caloocan 2nd District Rep. Edgar Erice noting that the process was merely weaponized in the political feud between the Marcoses and Dutertes.

For Defensor, it was important that solons picked which side they were going to be on and to cast a vote on 11 May, which is the expected date where the final vote will take place.

“Mahalaga talaga dapat pumanig ka, sa pula o sa puti. Kaya mas gusto ko at pinag kakagiitan ko nung committee hearing na sana may dumalo at sumagot,” he said.
(It is important that you take sides. That’s why I wanted and I pursued during the committee hearings that the Vice President would attend and to answer)

The Iloilo representative said that many lawmakers could have sided and voted for the impeachment proceedings to be halted at the Committee on Justice itself had Duterte expressed her side of the allegations.