House Stands Behind Impeachment Case Vs. VP Sara: What Happens Now?

Prosecutors from the House of Representatives on Wednesday, June 25, affirmed the Lower Chamber’s decision to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte after the Senate returned the suit following legal questions.

The House panel published a submission that said that there was no legal basis for the Senate’s return of the Vice President’s impeachment suit.

“This submission is without waiver of the Prosecution’s position that there is no legal basis for the return of the articles of impeachment forwarded to the Senate in accordance with the 1987 Constitution…,” according to a copy of the submission.

ALSO READ:

So, Why Are Senators 'Remanding' the Duterte Impeachment Case?

What a Beefed-Up Opposition Means for the Senate

Earlier this month, the Senate voted to return the looming politically pivotal impeachment case against the Vice President.

Senators sat as jurors to try VP Duterte, who faces a permanent ban to hold public office if she is found guilty of betraying public trust. Senator Alan Peter Cayetano then moved to return the Articles of Impeachment of the Lower Chamber amid questions about the trial.

“I’m sensing, from the start, that this motion to remand, might be construed by those who intend to undermine the impeachment process as an abuse of their discretion,” Arjan Aguirre, who teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University, told Esquire Philippines in an interview. “Many legal scholars and experts have already raised a red flag about this and I’m just afraid that this might be used by VP Sara against the impeachment tribunal eventually.”

Senators like Deputy Minority Floor Leader Risa Hontiveros, Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian, and Minority Floor Leader Aquilino voted against the move saying returning the case would violate the Constitution.

Gatchalian on the other hand said senators could have discussed these legal questions in open trial.

“Even without this matter of the remand order, the impeachment trial must proceed because this is the command of the Constitution,” Michael Henry Yusingco, a constitutionalist and senior fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center, said in an online exchange. “Still this submission of the House satisfies the questions of the Senate the bottomline is, the trial must proceed as directed by the Constitution.”

The Vice President, whose father is the tough-talking former President Rodrigo Duterte, had been impeached by the Lower House after threatening the lives of incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. The trial is set to proceed amid the Duterte clan’s feud with the Marcoses, after they ran on a joint ticket in the last national elections in 2022.

“Given the response of the House prosecution panel, the Senate should proceed with the trial. This is also a response to the allegations of the Vice President and her lawyers,” said Ela Atienza, who teaches political science at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Including Duterte, only five top Philippine officials have been impeached, with only Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona getting convicted.

“The House prosecutors’ decision should already remind and persist to the Senate that they cannot remand this any further. With the closing of the 19th Congress, this has to be the first business of the 20th Congress like it or not,” Hansley Juliano, who also teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University, said in an interview.