VP Sara impeachment private prosecutors waiving service fee, Adiong says

The private prosecutors who will help the 11 House prosecutors for the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte will be rendering their services "free of charge," House trial spokesperson and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Adiong said Wednesday.

“The mere fact that they have volunteered their services free of charge to be part of the prosecution team, it's because of their fidelity to the Constitution and they are already convinced that there are probable cause, there is evidence to hold the Vice President to account,” Adiong said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview.

“They have volunteered their services free of charge because ultimately, we want to strengthen the impeachment process, which is our accountability mechanism and the most democratic way of holding impeachable officers to account. We thank them for wholeheartedly offering their services to be a part of the prosecution team,” Adiong added.

Adiong, however, has yet to disclose the names of the private prosecutors.

Constitutional duty

In the same interview, Adiong said that the House’s pursuit of the impeachment of the Vice President is a constitutional duty, not political maneuvering.

“Political pressure should be subservient to our fidelity to the Constitution. First and foremost, we have sworn our allegiance to the Philippine flag. We have sworn our allegiance to the constitution without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. That's very clear and that is our mandate,” Adiong said.

“The House of Representatives was given the task by the constitution to initiate impeachment processes if there are complaints being filed and endorsed by the House members. That is very clear. We have a constitutional duty to fulfill here," he added.

"We cannot evade it just because of political pressure. That evasion, to me, at the very least, is dereliction of duty because you have sworn to protect the Constitution, not only to protect the Constitution, to uphold it, to obey it and to act on the directives of the Constitution.”

Summons

The Senate impeachment court on Wednesday issued a writ of summons against Duterte in relation to her impeachment case.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Manuel Parlade led the serving of the written summons.

In a message to reporters, the Office of the Vice President confirmed receipt of the summons at 10:40 a.m.

Under Resolution 39 or the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trial, Duterte has a non-extendible period of 10 calendar days from receipt to file her pleadings on the impeachment case, and will be ordered to appear before the Senate "upon notice."

Articles of impeachment

The Articles of Impeachment approved by the House for Senate action accuses the Vice President of culpable violation of the Constitution, gratft and corruption, betrayal of public trust, bribery and other high crimes, based on the following acts:

a) systematic misuse, misappropriation, and irregular liquidation of confidential funds amounting to P500 million released to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P112.5 million released to the Department of Education (DepEd) during her tenure as Education chief

b) amassing unexplained wealth manifestly disproportionate to her lawful income and earnings during her incumbency as a public official

c) failure to fully and truthfully disclose all her and her spouse's assets, liabilities, and net worth in her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) including in her SALN for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024;

d) failure to divest, and instead, willfully continued, all her business interests during her tenure as vice president for the years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025

e) giving monetary gifts or payments to DepEd officials to induce the violation and circumvention of procurement and other related laws.

f) contracting for the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and former Speaker of the House and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, by making grave threats, and by actively inciting sedition against the republic.

Items a, e and f constitute Article 1, 3 and 4, while items b, c and d are all subsections of Article 2 of the Articles of Impeachment.

'No feeling'

Last week, Duterte said she is letting her lawyers handle the House of Representatives’ move to impeach her, adding that she has no personal feelings about the development.

Sa impeachment, mayroon kaming spokesperson at defense team para sa impeachment. ‘Yan ay isang legal na proseso at iwan na lang natin sa spokesperson at sa abogado ang pag-komento,” Duterte said in an interview in The Hague.

(We already have a spokesperson and a defense team for the impeachment. This is a legal process, and we should leave the comments to the spokesperson and the lawyers.) —VAL, GMA News