NUP chair walks back party statement on VP impeach raps
The head of one of the administration parties in the House of Representatives clarified an earlier party statement that its members will ‘’most likely not vote in favor’’ of the new impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte for lack of any fresh compelling evidence.
House Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno, chair of the National Unity Party (NUP), walked back the group pronouncement issued on Wednesday night that was signed by NUP secretary general Reginald Velasco.
Velasco issued the NUP statement explaining the party position and its assessment of the new complaints ahead of the first committee deliberations on the matter on March 2.
But in an online interview on Thursday, Puno said individual NUP members would still be allowed to make a “conscience vote’’ on the complaints.
The statement released on Wednesday, Puno said, was “not a party stand” but “just the consensus of the ones that I have talked to.”
“We will have another formal meeting. I doubt that there will be a uniform party stand here because there is just too much division among our members,” said the Antipolo City representative.
“So the tendency now or the direction now is that we probably will have a conscience vote that everybody will be allowed to vote the way he wants to vote There is no clear bias or leaning towards either side at this point,” he added.
‘Very divided right now’
Puno said this was also the reason why NUP decided to issue a statement to maintain that it will only support the revived impeachment complaints against the Vice President if they offer new and strong evidence.
“So we are very divided right now, so we ended up with ‘sige (okay), let’s see what the evidence will show,’” he said.
The party currently has 43 members in the 317-member House under the 20th Congress.
On Feb. 5, 2025, during the 19th Congress, a total of 215 House members signed what the chamber then held as the first complaint against Duterte, formally seeking the ouster of the Vice President and sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial.
The Senate deferred action on the matter for months in view of the legal challenge raised at the Supreme Court against the House vote. The tribunal later ruled the impeachment unconstitutional on technical grounds, mainly for violating the one-year bar on filing complaints.
Abante, Defensor
Four new complaints have been filed recently against Duterte, practically making the same accusations contained in the 2025 complaint. These include her alleged misuse of confidential funds and the death threat she publicly made against President Marcos, his wife Liza, and then Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Before Puno’s clarification, the NUP statement on Wednesday night said the party did not see any “new and material evidence that would warrant a departure from issues that have already been the subject of prior inquiries and extensive public hearings.”
“Unless compelling new evidence emerges during the course of these hearings that fundamentally alters the factual basis for the impeachment complaint, the NUP will most likely not vote in favor of this measure,” statement said.
The last of the four new impeachment complaints against Duterte was filed by an NUP member, Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante.
One of the 11 House prosecutors formed in 2025 for the supposed Senate impeachment trial was also an NUP member, Iloilo Rep. Lorenz Defensor.
Now also senior deputy majority leader, Defensor on Thursday said he was not consulted about the NUP statement.
“As a prosecutor, I said I will maintain my position that if the evidence during the previous impeachment, especially the evidence on betrayal of public trust, I will not take back my previous vote during the previous impeachment,” Defensor told reporters.
Another critic from party
Another NUP stalwart in the forefront of investigations demanding accountability from Duterte was Manila Rep. Rolando Valeriano.
Valeriano delivered a privilege speech in September 2024 questioning the scope and effectiveness of the socioeconomic programs of the Office of the Vice President and also of the Department of Education during the two years it was also headed by Duterte.
He particularly wanted the programs checked for “ghost” or bogus beneficiaries.
In a phone interview on Thursday, Valeriano agreed with Puno that party members should still vote according to their conscience “like what happened during the impeachment (process) last year.”
The new impeachment complaints against the Vice President are set to be taken up by the House committee on justice beginning March 2 to determine whether they are sufficient in form and in substance.
The House plenary can either approve or overrule the committee findings by a vote of one-third of all members, or at least 106 lawmakers.
