VP Sara answers impeachment court, seeks dismissal of complaints

Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday formally asked the Senate impeachment court to dismiss the verified impeachment complaint filed against her for being illegal, saying that it violated the one-year bar rule under the 1987 Constitution. 

The Vice President, in her answer ad cautelam (with caution) filed in compliance with the Senate impeachment court order, was referring to the Constitutional provision allowing only one impeachment complaint to be filed against an impeachable official per year. 

“Vice President Sara Z. Duterte, by counsel, without waiving any jurisdictional and/or other objections she has to this case and the Fourth Impeachment Complaint, respectfully states: the fourth impeachment complaint must be dismissed because it is void ab initio for violating the One-Year Bar Rule under Section 3 (5) Article XI of the 1987 Constitution,” the document read.

Arnel Barrientos Jr., a messenger from the law firm Fortun, Narvasa & Salazar, arrived at the office of Senate Secretary Renato Bantug at 5:49 p.m. carrying boxes containing copies of the 35-page answer ad cautelam. 

The House of Representatives earlier received a copy of Duterte’s answer to the impeachment complaint at 3:53 p.m., as confirmed by House spokesperson Atty. Princess Abante.

The House prosecutors now have five days from receipt of the answer to provide their own reply. Since June 28 falls on a Saturday, they could still submit up to June 30, Monday. 

To recall, Duterte was given a non-extendible period of 10 days, starting June 11, to answer to the articles of impeachment against her. Since June 21 was a Saturday, she had until Monday, June 23 to respond. 

The summons were served to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in Mandaluyong City by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms on June 11, a day after the Senate convened as an impeachment court and the senators took their oath as judges. 

The Senate impeachment court had voted 18-5 to bring Duterte’s case back to the lower chamber without dismissing or terminating it.

The House of Representatives impeached Duterte on February 5, with over 200 lawmakers endorsing the complaint. The articles of impeachment were transmitted to the Senate the same day, but the upper chamber adjourned without tackling the impeachment case.

Impeachment complaints

There were initially three impeachment complaints filed by different groups and endorsed by various lawmakers against the Vice President, mainly alleging betrayal of public trust due to the alleged misuse of over P612 million in confidential funds.  

The impeachment complaints were filed after the House good government and public accountability inquiry revealed that based on the submissions of Office of the Vice President (OVP) and Department of Education under Vice President Duterte’s tenure as Education chief to the Commission on Audit, the OVP and DepEd liquidated the P612 million of confidential funds it received from 2022 to 2023 with acknowledgement receipts containing wrong dates, signatories with no birth records, unnamed signatures, non-readable signatories, among others.   

These three complaints, however, were not forwarded by the House Secretary General Reginald Velasco to the Office of the Speaker, Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez,  a requirement for the complaint to be scheduled for House Committee on Justice-level deliberation. 

A fourth impeachment complaint was filed in February and has gathered over 200 lawmakers as endorsers or way higher than one-third of all the House members needed for the complaint to be sent directly to the Senate for trial as stated in the 1987 Constitution.

The fourth impeachment complaint accused the Vice President of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, and other high crimes mainly over alleged misuse of around P612.5 million worth of confidential funds and threatening to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., his wife Liza and the President’s cousin and Speaker Romualdez. —LDF, GMA Integrated News