Impeach raps vs. Sara Duterte followed due process, Constitution —House prosecutor

The House of Representatives followed the Constitution and due process in impeaching Vice President Sara Duterte, said a lawmaker, who will sit as one of the prosecutors in the impeachment trial.

San Juan City Representative Ysabel Zamora made the assertion in response to the petition filed by the Vice President asking the Supreme Court to declare the impeachment complaint null and void. 

Zamora said there was no grave abuse on the House's decision not to refer the three impeachment complaints to the Office of the Speaker for more than a month since the members were finding consensus on which impeachment complaint to support.

“There was no violation. It was actually the request of the Congressmen to look further into the complaints before it was moved to the Committee on Justice," Zamora told reporters.

"There was no grave abuse of discretion, there was no lack of due process in coming up with the fourth impeachment complaint. Everyone was made aware, copies of the complaint were circulated,  the lawmakers have read it. It was the consensus of a lot of Congressmen to consolidate all of the three complaints into one complaint,” she added.

Likewise, Zamora said the impeachment complaint signed off by 215 House members did not violate the one year ban.

The Constitution provides that once an impeachment complaint is endorsed by more than the required one-third of the members of the House, the impeachment complaint will be directly sent to the Senate for trial, bypassing the deliberations at the House Committee on Justice level.

“The one-year ban had not set in because if we recall the case of Francisco v. House of Representatives, the one-year ban will start from what we have as a term which is initiation, whether the impeachment proceedings have been initiated. Initiated under this Francisco [vs. House of Representatives] case means the filing of the complaint endorsed by a congressman and referred to the Committee on Justice for proper disposition,” Zamora said.

“It is not the mere filing of a complaint that will trigger the one year period. I believe that if they look into our proceedings, the Supreme Court will see that Congress adhered to the limits or the requirements stated in the Constitution and even in the rules of Congress,” she added.

Zamora then said that while it is legal for the Vice President’s camp to seek relief from the Supreme Court, such a move can be interpreted as a way to delay the proceedings.

“I had the privilege of appearing in court in many instances, and you will always have parties doing that, delaying the case. Or if one doesn't have a case, then they will file such petitions for certiorari to go all the way up to the Supreme Court so the case resolution would take time. Everyone has a right to file whatever petitions he or she may want to file, but I think the Supreme Court will see through these petitions and see that we have to push through with this political exercise,” Zamora said.

“We are confident that maybe in the initial stages of the proceedings for this petition, the Supreme Court may direct parties to file their pleadings but eventually it will see that this is maybe a dilatory tactic and it will rule in favor of the Congress and allow the political exercise of impeachment to proceed,” she added.

Lawyer Sheila Sison, the counsel for Vice President Duterte, earlier said that the House should not act on impeachment complaints on a whim. 

"The question that we're respectfully asking the Supreme Court to decide is whether this is permitted. Is the House permitted to have that unbridled discretion with its own set of rules that it had promulgated for impeachment proceedings just so it could pave the way for some fourth impeachment complaint," Sison said. 

“Sa tingin ko, walang contradiction ‘yung statement ni Vice President na she's willing to face whatever charges against sa kanya, Hindi naman nagbabago ‘yun. Hindi naman ibig sabihin na nag-file siya ng petisyon para kwestionin ‘yung proseso....hindi ibig sabihin na ayaw na niyang humarap,” she added.

(I don’t think there is a contradiction between the statement of the Vice President that she is willing to face charges against her. That has not changed. It does not mean that just because she filed a petition questioning the process she is not willing to face these accusations.)—LDF, GMA Integrated News