House to revise impeachment rules after Supreme Court decision on Sara Duterte Case

The House of Representatives will revise the Rules of Impeachment as provided under the House rules to comply with the Supreme Court decision declaring the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte illegal, a House leader said Thursday.

Manila Rep. Joel Chua, chairman of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, issued the statement after the High Court’s January 29 decision affirmed its July 2025 ruling declaring the impeachment case against the Vice President on two grounds: violation of the one-year bar rule and violation of her right to due process.

“As a member of the House prosecution team and of the House Committee on Justice, I will confer with my colleagues on how best to revise the Rules on Impeachment as we deem fit and in ways that comply with the Supreme Court decision,” Chua said in a statement.

“We will receive inputs from the complainants, some of whom are now members of the House. It is also possible that the Prosecution team composition will have some changes,” he added.

The Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment case against the Vice President was unconstitutional for violating the one-year bar rule.

The House already archived the first three verified impeachment complaints filed when the majority of the House members voted to impeach the Vice President based on the fourth verified impeachment complaint filed.

The Supreme Court said archiving was in effect a referral, thus violating the constitutional limit of only referring one impeachment complaint per year against an impeachable official.

In its appeal, which was junked by the Court, the House argued that archiving was not a referral and thus, not a violation of the one-year bar rule.

The Supreme Court decision on the Sara Duterte impeachment case said the House violated the Vice President's right to due process because it did not comply with the following requirements: 

• 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 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.

Chua, however, said he respected the High Court’s decision.

“While I do not agree with the Supreme Court decision, we will abide by it because as a lawyer, I am an officer of the court and swore to respect and uphold our system anchored on the rule of law,” Chua said.

“This statement reflects my personal view as a Member of the House, and not the collective position of the entire House of Representatives or the panel of prosecutors,” he added.

The non-existent, if not questionable, names of recipients of millions of confidential funds of the Vice President were revealed during the inquiry conducted by the Chua-led House panel in 2024.

ML party-list Rep. Leila De Lima, a House Deputy Minority Leader, said the Supreme Court decision only concerns a technicality, not the merits of the impeachment case against the Vice President.

"The SC's (Supreme Court) ruling rests on a technicality. Magagamit ito sa susunod na filing," De Lima said.

(The decision will be considered in the refiling.) 

"It is still not a vindication. Wala pa ring nalinis na pangalan," he added.

(No name has been cleared here.) –NB, GMA Integrated News