Senate votes to archive Sara impeachment case
After debating for hours on Wednesday whether to dismiss or defer action on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte in view of the Supreme Court’s decision declaring it unconstitutional, senators decided in the end to have the complaint “archived.”
Voting 19-4, with one abstention, the Senate moved to archive the articles of impeachment to adhere to the SC ruling, which cited the House of Representatives’ grave abuse of discretion in the use of its impeachment powers.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano explained that the impeachment case against Duterte is dead unless revived by a reversal of the Supreme Court ruling.
Voting no to the motion were Senators Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros and Francis Pangilinan. Sen. Panfilo Lacson abstained.
Before the vote to archive, the senators first voted 19-5 to reject Minority Leader Sotto’s motion to “table” or defer action on Sen. Rodante Marcoleta’s motion that seeks the outright dismissal of the impeachment complaint.
Sotto and Marcoleta earlier engaged in a debate on whether the body should wait for the high court to resolve the motion for reconsideration filed by the House of Representatives to reverse the decision.
Marcoleta initially moved to dismiss the impeachment case.
He was advised by Senator Cayetano to replace “dismiss” with “archive” in his motion, saying the Senate had only two choices: whether to follow the SC’s ruling or not.
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva proposed to amend Marcoleta’s motion, saying the articles of impeachment should be archived “in adherence” to the SC’s ruling, stressing that the Senate did not acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment due to its unconstitutionality.
Marcoleta then accepted the amended motion.
Procedural lapses
When the Senate convened its regular session, Marcoleta opened the discussion by moving to dismiss the impeachment case.
“Mr. President, when the [SC] negates the actions of a co-equal branch of government, it does not assert its superiority. Instead, it upholds the supremacy and the dominance of the fundamental law of the land, the Constitution,” he said, addressing Senate President Francis Escudero.
“And so the [SC] has already spoken. The last arbiter of law, it says the complaint is unconstitutional, is void ab initio (from the beginning), is violative of due process. The Senate never acquired jurisdiction over this. It is immediately executory.”
“On that note, Mr. President, I respectfully move that the impeachment complaint be dismissed. I so move,” he said.
Marcoleta pointed out several procedural lapses, including the violation of the one-year ban on filing the impeachment complaints, the failure of the House of Representatives to include the complaint in its order of business, the incorrect date stated in the documents, failure to refer the complaint to the appropriate committee where the Vice President would had been given the right to defend herself.
“They transmitted to the Senate without requiring themselves to observe another provision of their own rules,” he said.
While the high court does not prohibit the filing of impeachment complaints against government officials, he said that it must be done properly.
“You want to impeach the Vice President? Do it the right way,” he stressed.
Not yet final
After Marcoleta’s motion, Sotto took the floor, requesting that the Senate not dismiss the impeachment complaint “forthwith” since the SC decision being used as basis is not yet final.
“A motion for reconsideration was filed by the House of Representatives just last Monday,” Sotto said during his interpellation. “Why are we rushing to dismiss the case?”
Sotto warned that dismissing the case prematurely could result in complications should the SC reverse its ruling.
“Just to remind everyone, the reversal of the Supreme Court’s own decision is not impossible, even in landmark cases,” he said, citing the La Bugal-B’laan v. Ramos and Lily Lopez v. Lolito Lopez cases as examples.
Deputy Minority Leader Hontiveros supported the move to defer action on the motion to dismiss the impeachment case against Duterte.
“Tabling the motion to dismiss by the Senate today would not be a defiance of the Supreme Court. There’s no final decision yet. Even the Supreme Court is still waiting for the Vice President’s comment,” Hontiveros explained.
The senator seconded the motion of Sotto to wait until the decision of the high court has attained finality.
Later into the session, Cayetano asked Marcoleta if his motion could be amended.
Jurisdiction issue
“Since we disagree slightly on dismiss, would the movant consider [to] amend [the] motion that the Senate follows—or [whatever term is acceptable to the] minority—the Supreme Court decision. Because if the motion is to obey the Supreme Court, so if the Supreme Court reconsiders, the motion still carries, then we will follow. If they don’t, we will follow,” Cayetano said.
Marcoleta said he is amenable to an amendment such as sending the case to the “archive.”
Joining the discussion, Senator Lacson questioned the Senate’s jurisdiction to act on a motion to dismiss the impeachment complaint, saying such a motion is not provided for in the upper chamber’s rules.
“How do we deal with the motion to dismiss? We are in plenary as a legislative body and we are not an impeachment court?” Lacson asked.
He noted that the decision to dismiss the case falls solely and exclusively under the jurisdiction and authority of an impeachment court.
“Shall we even take it up or deal with it? We do not have guidelines because the motion to dismiss is not in our rules. So what guidelines will we follow in addressing the motion to dismiss submitted by the Hon. Marcoleta? Assuming that the motion is voted upon and adopted by this body, what if the Supreme Court reverses itself when it rules on the motion for reconsideration filed by the House of Representatives through the Solicitor General? Shall we also backtrack and reverse ourselves in dismissing the impeachment case? Lacson said.
In response, Escudero said the impeachment complaint may be archived as was done in the cases of former President Joseph Estrada and former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.
Escudero noted that the high court has already ruled that the Senate did not acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment proceedings as the impeachment complaint was declared unconstitutional.
“Indeed there might not be anything to dismiss—and the procedure would be more properly to archive similar to what we have done in the past, so that these proceedings would still be made part of the Senate’s records,” Escudero said.
Senate must reconvene, if…
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the House prosecution panel noted that like the SC ruling, any Senate decision while the House appeal is still pending is also not yet considered final.
Veteran lawyer Antonio Bucoy said that even if the Senate votes to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Duterte, it must still reconvene as an impeachment court if the SC reverses itself.
“That would mean that the articles of impeachment are still alive if the [SC] reverses course on its decision,” he said. “There’s still a chance (for reversal) because our magistrates are, after all, human, and they can make mistakes, and I believe that once they see the facts, they would be enlightened.” —WITH REPORTS FROM KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING AND GABRIEL PABICO LALU INQ
