SC decision on impeach rap makes accountability 'almost impossible' —Azcuna

The Supreme Court (SC) decision declaring the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte unconstitutional makes the accountability procedure for public officials impossible to carry out, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna said.

"The new rules of the Supreme Court in its decision, unless reconsidered, would add a plethora of requirements ranging from prior notice and hearing, to attaching the evidence, to requiring proof that the Representatives read and understood the charges and the supporting evidence. All these will effectively render it almost impossible to carry out the intended accountability procedure," he said in a social media post.

"Furthermore, if allowed to stand, it will to my mind effectively amend —and, God forbid, derail— the Constitution which even the Supreme Court has no power to do," added Azcuna, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution.

On July 25, the high court released a decision declaring the impeachment complaint against Duterte unconstitutional.

It ruled that the one-year ban is reckoned from the time an impeachment complaint is dismissed or is no longer viable. The SC said the first three impeachment complaints against Duterte were archived and deemed terminated or dismissed on February 5, 2025 when the House of Representatives endorsed the fourth impeachment complaint.

Azcuna said, "the principal casualty" of the SC ruling "applying new rules on impeachment is the principle of accountability."

"As most impartial observers agree, the Supreme Court’s newly pronounced definition of 'initiate,' contrary to its own prevailing definition, would not only be unfair if applied retroactively, but would even as applied prospectively, unduly constrain the House of Representatives in the exercise of its exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment,” Azcuna added, referring to Article 11, Section 3 of the Philippine Constitution.

According to the former magistrate, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have "constituent powers."

He referred to this as the House's power to initiate all impeachment cases and the Senate's power to try and decide the same.

"The cardinal rule in regard to constituent powers is that where the Constitution puts it, there it should be."

"The Supreme Court cannot be to craft the rules to enforce Article XI of the Constitution. The reason for this is because the Supreme Court members are themselves impeachable officials. So they cannot be the ones to define the rules for their own possible impeachment. This would go against the very heart of due process— No one can be the judge in one's own case," Azcuna said.

Azcuna said the Vice President’s right to due process was not violated by the House in filing the impeachment complaint because the official was not deprived of life, liberty or property as stated in the Bill of Rights.  

“Someone being impeached does not stand to be deprived of life, nor of liberty, much less of property. So what is the Constitutional basis for insisting on applying due process rules in all phases of impeachment? None,” he said.

“Public office is a public trust. It is not a property owned by the occupant. The principles of due process therefore do not strictly apply to protect its occupants from scrutiny and possible removal,” he added.

The House is set to appeal the SC ruling, arguing that the archiving of the first three impeachment complaints is not considered as initiation as provided under two previous Supreme Court rulings in the Francisco v. House and Gutierrez v. House cases. —LDF, GMA Integrated News