No public official in government, regardless of their rank and the number of the people that voted for them is exempt from the accountability measures prescribed in the Constitution, a former solon said.

In a press conference after the first day of the impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte, former congressman and House Prosecution spokesperson Robert Ace Barbers sought to address a point raised by Duterte’s counsel in their opening statement.

According to the statement of Atty. Sheila Sison, it had been the second time that the House has attempted to impeach the Vice President, undermining the fact that she was voted for the position by 32 million Filipinos.

Sison further argued that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that the House had abused its power during the first impeachment, noting that the high court affirmed that the impeachment process should not be used to shame high public officers in an effort to “prevent them from doing what they were sworn to do.”

However, for Barbers, the sheer amount of votes in favor of Duterte could not be used to shield her from the accountability measures that were prescribed under the Constitution.

The spokesman stressed that the mere fact that numerous people support a particular politician does not mean that they are at liberty to commit any unlawful action without fear of repercussions.

“The vote of 32 million votes is not a license to commit crime, specially if you are a public officer,” he expressed.

“It is stated in our  Constitution that there is an accountability mechanism where there are consequences for public officers when they commit crime or violate provisions under the Constitution,” he added.

Barbers maintained that the Constitution was crafted in a way that afforded government the ability to prosecute those who act with ill-intent.

He also mentioned that the process of impeachment was purportedly crafted as one of the mechanisms of accountability as it ensured that all officials in government could be held to the same standards and responsibility in accordance with Philippine law.

“How can we seek accountability from the powerful in government if impeachment is not a thing?” he posited.

“Does it mean that because you’re the most powerful in the government and because you were able to get x amount of votes does that give you a license to commit all these violations?”

Not a fishing expedition

Aside from the initial assertion, members of the House Prosecution team also sought to clarify another persistent notion that the camp of Duterte had promulgated since the start of the House Committee on Justice hearings into the complaints against the Vice President—that the House conducted a “fishing expedition.”

To address the remark, House Lead Public Prosecutor Gerville Luistro said that the lower house merely followed the rules of impeachment, asserting that every step was carefully obeyed.

Luistro mentioned that despite of whatever the defense and critics of their process say, the House conducted a lawful proceedings.

“The House of Representatives never delved into fishing expedition. Everything that we did is legal, constitutional, lawful,” she explained.

Notably, under the Constitution, the House of Representatives is provided the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment for as long as a verified complaint was submitted and referred to the Justice panel.

From there, once the hearings of the committee are completed and the Articles of Impeachment are crafted, it will be handed over to the plenary where a “yes” vote of one-third of lawmakers is required to impeach a public official.

On 11 May, Duterte was impeached at the House for the second time with an affirmative vote from 257 solons.