VP Sara Duterte to skip House hearing on impeachment complaints against her

Vice President Sara Duterte will not attend the House Committee on Justice's hearing on Wednesday regarding the impeachment complaints against her.

Atty. Michael Poa, one of the Vice President's lawyers, confirmed her non-attendance in the committee's first hearing on the impeachment raps, which were earlier found sufficient in form, substance, and grounds.

Sara Duterte's camp on March 16 filed her reply to the impeachment complaints after the committee found them sufficient in substance on March 4.

"We raised due process issues because of what we feel sa aming pananaw ay hindi naging uniform ‘yung standards ng pag-determine ng sufficiency in form and substance doon sa naging impeachment complaints laban sa ating Pangulo at sa naging impeachment complaints laban sa ating Ikalawang Pangulo," Poa said in a report on "24 Oras."

(We raised due process issues because, in our view, the standards for determining sufficiency in form and substance have not been uniform in the impeachment complaints against our President and the impeachment complaints against our Vice President.)

n its reply, the Duterte camp asked the House justice panel to dismiss the impeachment complaints against her, saying the allegations against her were not impeachable offenses.  

“The impeachment complaints brazenly accuse the Vice President of entering into a supposed 'contract to kill' yet they fail to present any shred of proof that any such contract ever existed,” the reply read.

In the video cited in the complaints, the Vice President said that she had contracted someone to kill Marcos, the First Lady, and Romualdez if she were killed.

The Vice President's reply said the impeachment complainants relied on “exaggerated conclusions dressed up as fact.”

“Even worse, this conclusion is used as the basis for further unsupported assertions that the Vice President allegedly violated the Constitution, betrayed public trust, committed high crimes, and manifested a willful intent to subvert constitutional order, to incite or condone violence against constitutionally-vested officials, and to destabilize the lawful functioning of government,” it said.

"Allegations of such magnitude cannot be sustained by exaggeration and inference alone,” the reply added.

Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro said the House Committee on Justice will proceed with its scheduled impeachment hearing despite information that the Vice President and her legal team will not participate in the formal proceedings, raising issues on the constitutionality of the impeachment process.

“They are questioning the constitutionality of the proceedings, but the Committee on Justice is duty-bound to continue with its mandate under the Constitution,” Luistro said in a statement released on Tuesday evening.

“The hearing will proceed,” she added.

In the same statement Luistro said "the committee remains committed to conducting the proceedings fairly and within the bounds of the Constitution, underscoring that the Vice President has been given the opportunity to respond to the allegations."

"The formal hearings are part of the panel’s ongoing proceedings to assess the impeachment complaints against Duterte, which the committee earlier found sufficient in form, substance and grounds," she also said.

Luistro said the panel will hear testimonies and examine evidence to determine probable cause, which is a key stage prior to any transmittal of the case to the Senate.

'Disallowance under appeal'

The Vice President shrugged off the Notice of Disallowance (ND) issued by the Commission on Audit on the Office of the Vice President’s use of P73 million worth of confidential funds in 2022, saying the ND was still under appeal.

A notice of disallowance means that the expenditure is “either irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable."

“In its deliberations of the Saballa and Cabrera Complaints, this Committee disregarded the Petition for Review in Sara Z. Duterte, et al. v. Nilda B. Plaras, docketed as COA CP Case No. 2024-0194 before the Commission on Audit (COA), notwithstanding that the subject of that appeal is the Notice of Disallowance involving the same confidential funds that constitute the principal basis of the accusations therein," the reply said.

Significantly, the matter remains pending and unresolved, and any ruling of the COA would, in any event, remain subject to final judicial review by the Supreme Court,” it added.

“This [Justice] Committee then did not extend the same consideration to said Petition filed with COA, and disregarded the absence of any court decision declaring the Vice President guilty of unlawful or unconstitutional acts, as it did with respect to the impeachment complaints against the President,” the reply said.

The Vice President said the inclusion of the confessed bagman Ramil Madriaga in the impeachment complaints did not make the allegations any more credible because Madriaga is lying, and that she has since sued Madriaga for perjury.

“The impeachment complaints fail to demonstrate how the alleged acts supposedly committed by the Vice President could constitute 'other high crimes' that rise to the level of impeachable offenses, let alone criminal acts by themselves. All told, there is nothing in the impeachment complaints that demonstrates any ultimate facts pointing to a coherent, credible account or narration of any impeachable conduct,” the reply read. 

“Wherefore, it is respectfully prayed that these impeachment complaints be dismissed,” it added. — NB/BAP, GMA Integrated News