The House of Representatives was accused of machination in the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, a serious allegation raised in the separate opinion of Justice Ramon Paul L. Hernando in the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the rejection of the unconstitutional process.
A series of impeachment complaints have recently been filed against Vice President Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and these will be difficult to pursue under the tribunal’s new requirements designed to ensure a fair proceeding.
The main ruling and the separate opinions of the magistrates indicate the SC’s disposition to ensure the integrity of the impeachment process. “The Court cannot allow this degradation,” Hernando stated in his take on the SC ruling.
Four impeachment complaints were filed between December 2024 and February 2025. The first three, lodged in December 2024, accused VP Duterte of betrayal of public trust, graft, corruption, bribery, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other high crimes, focusing on misuse of public funds, gross incompetence, and the assassination threats.
On 5 February 2025, the House of Representatives impeached her based on the fourth complaint, with 215 to 240 lawmakers, or more than the one-third required under the Constitution, endorsing it, making her the first sitting vice president to face such action.
The articles were transmitted to the Senate, which would act as the impeachment court, but the session adjourned without proceeding to trial. VP Duterte filed a challenge with the SC, arguing violations of due process and the constitutional one-year bar on multiple impeachments against the same official.
According to Hernando, the House treated the one-year bar rule as a mere formality or technicality that it only needed to follow, unconcerned with whether the intent behind it was fulfilled.
“It lost sight of the rule’s significant purpose and instead viewed it as a shallow, cursory decree. But this should not be the case,” Hernando stated.
The magistrate reminded the chamber that the Constitution and its provisions are sacred and must be distinguished from, and treated differently than, ordinary rules and regulations.
He underlined that the one-year bar rule is a mechanism to balance accountability for public officers with the stability of government operations. “We can neither court impeachment too much nor excessively avoid it. Drift too much to one side, and disorder ensues. As one of the three major branches of the government, I would like to think that our interpretation, application, and obedience to laws, more so to constitutional provisions, should not stop at mere cursory compliance,” he indicated.
What was expected from the legislators was a deeper contemplation of their actions.
“Triggering the one-year bar rule and averting the progress of the fourth impeachment complaint on the basis of these circumstances is the only course of action that is fair, just, and faithful to the intended purpose of the relevant constitutional provisions.”
The alternative will be that the systems, which deserve respect and reverence, will lose their power “and will be relegated to mere nuisances that must be overcome to satisfy one’s aims.”
The tribunal’s ruling would further tighten the constraints on the chamber, curbing schemes and manipulations and preventing the use of impeachment for partisan ends.