House asks Senate: Don’t rush decision on Sara trial
The House of Representatives asked the Senate on Saturday to defer any decision on the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte until its appeal of the Supreme Court’s ruling throwing out its impeachment complaint had been fully resolved.
In a statement, House spokesperson Princess Abante urged the Senate, sitting as the impeachment court, to exercise prudence before the high tribunal’s decision becomes final and executory.
“The decision of the Supreme Court is not yet final,” Abante said. “The House of Representatives, as the body vested by the Constitution with the exclusive power and authority to initiate an impeachment, will file a Motion for Reconsideration soon.”
“This is a matter of constitutional right and institutional integrity,” she added.
It is imperative for the Senate as the impeachment court to allow the judicial process to run its full course, especially “for issues as transcendental as this—and especially when there appear to be factual errors upon which the legal conclusions were drawn,” Abante said.
Premature action
The Senate is scheduled to decide on Aug. 6 on whether to abide by the court’s ruling.
The House has until Aug. 10 to file its appeal.
“Any premature action—such as a Senate vote effectively abandoning the impeachment trial—may be interpreted as a disregard of due process. Worse, it may be construed as a political shortcut that undermines the constitutional role of the House,” Abante said.
Her statement follows Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada’s disclosure that an overwhelming majority of “19 to 20” of the 24 senators would likely vote against proceeding with the trial after the high tribunal declared that Duterte’s impeachment was unconstitutional and that the Senate had no jurisdiction over the case.
The Supreme Court sided with two petitions, including one from Duterte herself, which alleged that the articles of impeachment against the Vice President violated the one-year bar to more than one impeachment complaint against the same official and for violating her right to due process.
Duterte is being charged with graft and corruption and other high crimes, including misusing P612.5 million in confidential funds and threatening to have President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated if an alleged plot to kill her succeeds.
Some House minority lawmakers urged the senators to give the House and concerned citizens the opportunity to first intervene to challenge the court’s decision.
“The Senate led by (Senate President Francis) Escudero was more than happy to defer the impeachment trial for six months,” ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said in a statement to the Inquirer. “Now it seems too eager to dismiss forthwith.”
Show respect
“Instead of washing its hands of the impeachment and abdicating its role as impeachment court, at the very least, the Senate should show respect for the whole judicial process by waiting for it to play out,” he added.
Kabataan Rep. Renee Co said her group supported the initiative of four senators—Risa Hontiveros, Bam Aquino Francis Pangilinan and Vicente “Tito” Sotto III—not to dismiss the impeachment complaint.
Co cited “not just on procedural grounds since a motion for reconsideration has yet to be filed [by the House] on the ruling, but on the grounds that justice must be achieved in a major corruption case.”
She said the Senate “continues to abdicate” its task of trying an impeachment case.
“Instead of dismissing the case, it should be asserting its sole power as the trier of impeachment cases. It should be looking at the greater public interest in holding top officials accountable for the misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds,” Co said, referring to the main allegations against Duterte.
The first motion for reconsideration of the high court’s ruling was filed on Friday by the same group of citizens who lodged the first of the four impeachment complaints against Duterte.
“The Court should act on that first. Accountability and justice should not be left behind,” said Akbayan Rep. Perci Cendaña, who endorsed the Dec. 2, 2024, impeachment complaint.
New barriers
The citizens’ group is led by Francis “Kiko” Aquino Dee, a nephew of the late President Benigno Aquino III. It asked the court to reconsider its ruling, warning that it “raises new barriers to holding high officials accountable through impeachment.”
In a statement, Dee said that due process “requires a trial and decision.” “Only the Senate can give due process,” he said.
“We still believe the Court can correct course. It’s not too late for the judiciary to stand with the people and uphold the spirit of our Constitution,” he added.
Co-complainant Dr. Sylvia Estrada Claudio said that the power of the public to hold officials accountable in a legal way was put at risk by the ruling.
“When the Court raises the bar for citizen-led accountability, it protects the powerful instead of the people,” Claudio said. “This decision makes an already difficult process feel impossible.”
Like the citizens’ group, members of the De La Salle University’s (DLSU) Department of Political Science and Development Studies also urged the Supreme Court to “revisit and reverse its deeply flawed ruling, especially now that the factual basis for it has been clearly debunked.”
They were referring to the main argument in the ruling that the fourth complaint endorsed by 215 House members was barred by the first three impeachment complaints after these were deemed “archived and terminated” when the Office of the Secretary General did not refer them to the committee on justice.
More than the required one-third of the House endorsed a fourth complaint which was transmitted as the articles of impeachment to the Senate on Feb. 5 before the first three complaints were archived.
“We now face the alarming reality that those who are supposed to protect our rights, uphold accountability, and defend the rule of law and justice—the members of the highest court in the land—have chosen instead to weaken the public’s ability to call out wrongdoing. In doing so, they undermine not just democratic checks and balances, but the very Constitution they swore to uphold,” the DLSU faculty said in an open letter on Saturday.
They also urged the Supreme Court to grant public access to the proceedings, including live streaming the deliberation on the motion for reconsideration as the “minimum owed to the public.”
