De Lima: Senate moved heaven and earth to protect VP Sara

The Senate's shelving of the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte was carried out to provide her with "extraordinary" protection, ML Partylist Representative Leila de Lima said Tuesday.

De Lima, a lawyer and a former senator and Justice secretary, was referring to the Senate’s archiving of the impeachment case even though the Supreme Court has yet to decide on the House of Representatives’ appeal.

In the High Court’s decision declaring the impeachment case unconstitutional, it said the House did not comply with at least seven rules—all of which did not exist when the House impeached the Vice President last February 5.

The seven new rules set by the Court in its July 25 decision on the Duterte v. House case are:

• the Articles of Impeachment or Resolution must include evidence when shared with the House members, especially those who are considering its endorsement.
• the evidence should be sufficient to prove the charges in the Articles of Impeachment.
• the Articles of Impeachment and the supporting evidence should be available to all members of the House of Representatives, not only to those who are being considered to endorse.
• the respondent in the impeachment complaint should have been given a chance to be heard on the Articles of Impeachment and the supporting evidence to prove the charges prior to its transmittal to the Senate, despite the number of endorsements from House members.
• the House of Representatives must be given reasonable time to reach their independent decision of whether or not they will endorse an impeachment complaint. However, the Supreme Court has the power to review whether this period is sufficient. The petitioner who invokes the Supreme Court's power to review should prove that officials failed to perform their duties properly.
• the basis of any charge must be for impeachable acts or omissions committed in relation to their office and during the current term of the impeachable officer. For the President and Vice President, these acts must be sufficiently grave amounting to the crimes described in Article XI Section 2, or the Trail of Public Trust given by the majority of the electorate. For the other impeachable officers, the acts must be sufficiently grave that they undermine and outweigh the respect for their constitutional independence and autonomy.
• the House of Representatives is required to provide a copy of the Articles of Impeachment and its accompanying evidence to the respondent to give him/her an opportunity to respond within a reasonable period to be determined by the House rule and to make the Articles of Impeachment, with its accompanying evidence and the comment of the respondent, available to all the members of the House of Representatives.

“Let us be honest: it is the House of Representatives whose constitutional prerogative has been disrespected. The Constitution commands the Senate to proceed with impeachment 'forthwith'—yet it took them nearly half a year to even consider convening as an impeachment court. But when the opportunity came to archive the complaint, suddenly 'forthwith' was crystal-clear to them,” de Lima said in a privilege speech.

“That burst of urgency, after months of delay, is telling. It is not unreasonable to suspect that this timing was no coincidence. The Senate’s slow walk bought time for the Vice President, for her lawyers to reach the Supreme Court, and for the Court to run the full length of its decision-making ritual. This was not respect for another branch; it was a choreography of convenience, and the House was the one made to bow,” she added.

De Lima said the House clearly followed the Constitution and the two Supreme Court decisions (Francisco v. House and Gutierrez v. House Justice Committee) which define initiation of impeachment as either referring the impeachment complaint to the House Committee on Justice or having more than one-third of House members signing off on an impeachment complaint.

Over 200 House members or more than one-third of the House members signed off on the fourth impeachment complaint filed by the House vs. the Vice President on February 5. Thereafter, the House archived the first three impeachment complaints filed by various groups against the Vice President.

Given these circumstances, de Lima said that the violations of the Constitution were committed by the Senate impeachment court and the Supreme Court.

“If this was truly about deference to the Supreme Court, the Senate could have simply suspended proceedings temporarily until the Motions for Reconsideration are resolved to give the Supreme Court. [But] what we witnessed from the Senate is the moving of heaven and earth to render extraordinary protection to the Vice President,” de Lima said.

“It is not the House which violated the Constitution. It is the Senate whose unorthodox actions need defending before the bar of public opinion, and when posterity will take a look at this chapter of our history. The Senate President said that the Senate is not anyone’s playground, and that is precisely why we expected it to rise above politics and uphold its duty to conduct a fair trial, not to preemptively dismiss the case,” de Lima added.

De Lima then asked the Senate and the Supreme Court what made the Vice President so special that she got away with threatening to kill President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. in an expletive-filled livestream video for all the public to see.

“Is the Vice President that special for the Senate to postpone the impeachment trial and for the Supreme Court to impose new rules in initiating impeachment case? Sa ginawa ng Senado at ng Korte Suprema, malinaw na naipamalas sa atin ang pananatili ng kapangyarihan ng mga Duterte. Panganib itong hindi dapat maliitin,” de Lima said.

(The Senate and Supreme Court's actions showed that the Duterte family's powerful influence remains. This is a danger we should not underestimate.)

“Buong bayan ang nanood sa kanyang bantang ipapapatay raw niya ang Pangulo, ang Unang Ginang, at ikaw, Mr. Speaker. Meron na raw siyang kinausap na assassin. Siya po mismo ang nagdiin: hindi ito biro. 'No joke. No joke.' It is really not a joke. Under ordinary circumstances when a death threat is broadcast live on the internet to the highest and fourth highest officials of the land, it is doubtful that the offender would remain free the next day,” de Lima added.

(The whole nation watched her death threat against the President, First Lady and the Speaker, that she already talked to an assassin. She even emphasized it herself twice: She was not joking.) 

At this point, de Lima said the Senate and the Supreme Court had allowed the Vice President to evade charges “as if her death threat broadcast live on the internet were nothing more than a joke.”

“Si VP Sara na nga po ang nagsabi na hindi ito joke. Dalawang beses pa. Ganito po kalakas si VP Sara sa sistema ng ating hustisya. Tila baga wala siya sa ilalim nito. Nandoon siya, sa itaas, untouchable, malayo sa pananagutan ng Kongreso bilang isang impeachable official na sa disenyo ng ating Konstitusyon ay ang tanging sangay na may kapangyarihang panagutin siya sa puntong ito,” de Lima said.

(She said it twice, the threat was not a joke. That is how powerful she is against our justice system. It is as if she is not covered by it...she is way above it, untouchable, far from accountability to Congress which, as provided in our Constitution, is the only branch that has the power to hold her accountable.)

While the Vice President can still be made accountable in a future impeachment complaint, de Lima said the Supreme Court's upholding its decision to junk the impeachment case against her is unacceptable as it will make all impeachable officials untouchable.

“The point is the impeachment process has now been made more difficult by the Court’s decision in Duterte, if not nearly impossible. That is why Duterte vs. House, if not reconsidered, is unacceptable. The checkpoints  and roadblocks it has erected are simply insurmountable for House members to even dare endorsing one in the near future,” de Lima said.

“Accountability has never been made more difficult to achieve in this country than now. Let this echo through the halls of Congress and into the hearts of our people: no one is above the Constitution. Not the Vice President, not the President, not the legislature, not even the judiciary. The Constitution is the people’s sovereign will. And today, in its defense, the House of Representatives ought to stand, as it stands, unbowed, unafraid, and united,” she added. — BM, GMA Integrated News