The House prosecution panel asked the Senate on Tuesday to summon and direct Vice President Sara Duterte to answer the allegations against her under the articles of impeachment, including bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust, among others.
In an entry with a motion to issue a summons, the prosecution team requested that Duterte be compelled to “file an answer within a non-extendible period of 10 days from receipt of the writ of summons."
House prosecutors Marcelino Libanan and Ramon Gutierrez led the petition filing to the Senate, which will sit as the impeachment trial court. The same was addressed to Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero, the tribunal’s presiding officer.
The prosecution invoked Rule VII of Resolution 39, or the Rules and Procedures on Impeachment Trials, that an impeached official must be notified to appear before the Senate to file an answer to an impeachment complaint within ten days from receipt.
“Such language is significant and has been determined by the Supreme Court to relay an intention for the said rules to be 'valid from the date of their adoption until they are amended or repealed' and 'to be effective even in the next Congress,” the document read.
It added, “Thus, it behooves the Honorable Impeachment Court to give effect to the constitutional mandate for the instant impeachment case to 'forthwith proceed' and issue the writ of summons to respondent Duterte.”
VP Duterte is currently in The Hague, Netherlands, to help form the legal team of her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who is detained in the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity related to his bloody war on drugs.
Previously, she said that she would only return to the Philippines after a relative of theirs arrived to take over her.
The House of Representatives impeached VP Duterte on 5 February with an overwhelming 215 lawmakers, or more than double the required one-third votes (102 signatories), voting to endorse the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
She was accused of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.
The seven articles of impeachment were anchored on her alleged plot to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez killed, as well as the purported misappropriation of P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to her office and the Department of Education during her tenure as its secretary.
Based on the timetable of the Senate, the trial will begin on 30 June, or after the 20th Congress takes over and 12 new senators are sworn in.
The Senate will need a two-thirds vote or at least 16 of the 24 sitting senators to convict Duterte. If convicted, she will be perpetually disqualified from holding any public office in the future, including her alleged ambition to run for President in 2028.
Duterte had repeatedly denied the allegations against her, deeming it a “well-funded” and “coordinated political attack” aimed at derailing her future political ambitions.
Earlier, VP Duterte and a group of Mindanao lawyers allied with her father petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the Senate’s upcoming trial of her impeachment case.
They assailed that the articles of impeachment submitted by the House to the Senate were defective and rife with constitutional infirmities and thus must be nullified.