VP trial can proceed even with SC resolution–lawmaker
There should be no cause for concern over the Supreme Court (SC) acting on petitions against Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, according to a lawmaker who will serve as a prosecutor in that proceeding.
The high court, in a resolution dated July 8, asked the two chambers of Congress to submit specific information under oath and other relevant documents in resolving two petitions it had consolidated challenging the impeachment complaints against Duterte. The petitions were filed, respectively, by the Vice President herself and by a group of Mindanao lawyers led by Israelito Torreon.
Legal experts, including former Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III and a lawyers’ group based in the Duterte bailiwick of Davao City, have cautioned against engaging in these petitions, saying these may serve as a trap that will further delay the trial.
‘Resolving the issue’
But Manila Rep. Joel Chua, one of the prosecutors appointed by the House of Representatives, believes the developments in the high court “would not affect the still pending impeachment trial.”
“Some may ask if we should wait for the SC to release its decision, but we think there is no reason for the Senate to wait for whatever would be the decision of the Supreme Court because it did not issue any TRO (temporary restraining order). So as of now, trial should proceed until the Supreme Court asks it to stop,” Chua said in a briefing on Monday.
“What the Supreme Court is asking is clear. This is part of resolving the issue thrown at them, and the House will comply with the directive, even the Senate is asked to comply,” he said.
Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon agreed with Chua, saying that “we will proceed with the Supreme Court deliberations but again the Senate should still proceed [at] the soonest time with [the] trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.”
‘Opportunity to delay’
But in an email correspondence with the Inquirer, University of the Philippines law professor Paolo Tamase said: “Without commenting on the merits of the petitions, the [Supreme] Court’s intervention may further delay the trial. The Senate seems to have found an opportunity at every turn to delay… by refusing to start trial until after their long recess, only to remand it without basis.”
“We can expect that some in the Senate may use the Court’s Resolution as an excuse to wait for an authoritative answer to the questions it has been unusually welcoming,” Tamase said.
Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima also expressed the same concern.
“The Senate can use [a resolution by the Supreme Court], out of judicial courtesy, … to hold off the impeachment [trial], so that the issues raised in those two petitions would not become moot and academic,” she said in an interview with dzBB on Sunday.
Members of the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao warned as early as last month against responding to efforts before the Supreme Court to stop the trial.
“The camp of Sara would like the House to question the Senate’s act in the SC. In fact, Sara’s Davao lawyer already made a supplemental motion,” lawyer Joel Mahinay, vice chair of the group, noted at a forum at Ateneo de Davao University on June 14 covered by the Inquirer.
“For me, it is a trap,” he said.
“They want to delay the proceedings to make people tired, and so, they can settle the issue in 2028,” Mahinay said, referring to that election year when the Vice President is expected to throw her hat in the presidential race.
