The House prosecution panel asked the Senate on Tuesday to direct Vice President Sara Duterte to answer the allegations against her in the articles of impeachment, which include bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust, among others.
In an entry with a motion to issue a summons, the prosecution team asked that Duterte be compelled to “file an answer within a non-extendable period of 10 days from receipt of the writ of summons.”
House prosecutors Marcelino Libanan and Ramon Gutierrez led the filing of the petition in the Senate, which will sit as the impeachment court. It was addressed to Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero, the tribunal’s presiding officer.
The prosecution cited Rule VII of Resolution 39, or the Rules and Procedures on Impeachment Trials, which mandates that an impeached official must be notified to appear before the Senate and file a response to the impeachment complaint within 10 days of 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Court to relay an intention for the said rules to be ‘valid from the date of their adoption until they are amended or repealed’ and ‘to be effective even in the next Congress,” the document read.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.”
The Vice President is currently in The Hague, the Netherlands, attending to the needs of her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who is detained in the International Criminal Court awaiting trial for alleged crimes against humanity related to the bloody war on drugs during his administration.
She has said she would return to the Philippines after a relative arrives to take over from her.
The House of Representatives impeached VP Duterte on 5 February with an overwhelming 215 lawmakers, or more than twice the required one-third number, voting to endorse the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
The seven articles of impeachment are 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.
Per the Senate timetable, the trial will begin on 30 June after the 20th Congress takes over and 12 new senators are sworn in.
To convict Duterte will require a two-thirds vote, meaning at least 16 of the 24 senators must vote in favor of it. If convicted, she will be permanently disqualified from holding public office, which would torpedo a run for president in 2028.
Duterte has repeatedly denied the allegations against her, deeming them a “well-funded” and “coordinated political attack” aimed at derailing her future political plans.
Earlier, VP Duterte and a group of Mindanao lawyers allied with her father petitioned the Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order to block the Senate impeachment trial.
They alleged the articles of impeachment submitted by the House to the Senate were defective and rife with constitutional infirmities and thus must be nullified.