Chiz: VP trial delay, Senate power play not connected
Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero on Monday shot down speculations that his decision to again postpone proceedings related to Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial was intended to save himself from being unseated during the last six session days of the 19th Congress.
“I’m not the accused in the impeachment complaint. I don’t see the connection between postponing [the proceedings and keeping my post],” Escudero told a news conference before presiding over the resumption of the Senate plenary session.
Escudero had rescheduled to June 11 the June 2 presentation of the articles of impeachment by the House of Representatives’ prosecution team amid a leadership contest ahead of the 20th Congress, with Duterte’s support seen as a crucial factor in its outcome.
Last month’s midterm elections led to the Vice President’s allied candidates almost dominating the senatorial race and to the reinforcement of the so-called Duterte bloc in the Senate.
Escudero, however, maintained that the impeachment proceedings had to be postponed to give way to priority measures identified on May 29 by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac).
He also stressed that President Marcos—who said he “did not want” his estranged ally and Vice President to be removed from office—had nothing to do with the postponement. When asked if that came from the President, the Senate leader replied: “No, it did not.”
Escudero said he only informed Speaker Martin Romualdez about the postponement in a letter he sent him that day they held the Ledac meeting.
Tolentino: Case moot
At the plenary session, Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino argued that the impeachment trial of the Vice President was “tied to the mandate and lifespan of the Congress that initiated it.”
“The current Senate’s jurisdiction to hear and decide this impeachment case cannot be carried over to the next Senate,” the outgoing senator said in his manifestation.
Tolentino, a lawyer, said the impeachment charges against Duterte must be dismissed for being moot if the Senate fails to decide on the matter by the end of the 19th Congress on June 30.
“The power to hear and decide the present impeachment versus Vice President Sara Duterte … is vested in the present Senate of the 19th Congress itself. Such jurisdiction is not transferable to the Senate of the 20th Congress,” he said.
But Senators Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Risa Hontiveros disagreed with Tolentino.
Pimentel said the 1987 Constitution did not prohibit the Senate from resuming the impeachment process begun in the previous Congress.
“On the contrary, the Senate Rules on Impeachment support the position that the impeachment trial shall continue until final judgment, even if it is necessary to continue into the next Congress,” Pimentel said.
Hontiveros said suspending the impeachment process would openly violate the Charter, which mandated the senators to proceed with the trial “forthwith.”
“The Supreme Court has also previously ruled that the Senate is treated as a continuing body when it comes to nonlegislative functions, and those include the vital duty to sit as an impeachment court,” she said.
Upper chamber’s call
Romualdez on Monday maintained that the House was leaving to the Senate how it would conduct the impeachment proceedings.
The Speaker, reelected as representative of Leyte’s first congressional district, told reporters that concerns over the impeachment trial, including the possibility that it would not push through, were “speculative at this point.”
“The Senate President’s letter to me was pretty straightforward. The impeachment complaint is already with the Senate so we leave it to their sound discretion as to how they want to proceed and conduct [the trial],” Romualdez said.
But outgoing Camarines Sur Rep. Gabriel Bordado Jr. questioned the postponement. “Is this delay not, in effect, a compromise of our solemn duty as public servants sworn to uphold the Constitution?” he asked.
“If we permit delay in the face of alleged abuses of power [by the Vice President], then we too become complicit in the erosion of our democracy,” said Bordado, the incoming vice mayor of Naga City.
