The Senate’s transfer to remand the impeachment case to the Home is anchored on the Duterte camp’s assertion that the decrease chamber violated the constitutional one-year-bar rule, which the OSG insists is a flawed idea
The Senate moved to return the articles of impeachment in opposition to Vice President Sara Duterte to the Home of Representatives attributable to allegations that the Home of Representatives violated the Structure when it impeached the Philippines’ second prime official.
The Senate, sitting as an impeachment courtroom, requested the Home to certify that its impeachment proceedings had been in compliance with the 1987 constitution, opposite to the accusations of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who raised the movement that was ultimately accredited in a vote of 18 to five.
The declare of Dela Rosa echoed arguments introduced by the Vice President in her petition filed with the Supreme Courtroom in February during which she requested magistrates to cease her upcoming trial.
Does her argument even have advantage?
Sara’s level
Duterte’s case is anchored on the availability within the Structure that states: “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated in opposition to the identical official greater than as soon as inside a interval of 1 12 months.”
In authorized circles, that is known as the one-year-bar rule.
Three impeachment complaints — which Rappler’s sources had mentioned had been too weak on their very own to resist scrutiny — had been filed in a span of three weeks in December 2024, however Home Secretary Common Reginald Velasco sat on the petitions and didn’t refer them to Speaker Martin Romualdez.
That’s despite the fact that the 1987 Structure states {that a} verified impeachment criticism filed with the Home shall be included within the order of enterprise —by the Speaker — inside 10 session days.
In February, it was the fourth criticism — believed to be a consolidation of the primary three petitions and the one which secured the help of greater than two-thirds of the Home — that hurdled the chamber and was transmitted to the Senate.
Duterte believes the act of delaying the referral of the petitions itself already constitutes an preliminary motion on the complaints, triggering the impeachment course of. Subsequently, the fourth criticism violated the constitutional one-year-bar rule, in keeping with the Vice President.
The federal government’s protection
The Workplace of the Solicitor Common (OSG), as lawyer of the federal government, was tasked to defend the Home of Representatives, which is the respondent within the case.
In its remark filed with the Supreme Courtroom on March 10, it mentioned Duterte’s idea is flawed.
The OSG mentioned that the Home has the ability to introduce a step between receipt of impeachment complaints and the working of the 10-session-day timer stipulated within the Structure.
That step is the referral of the criticism by the Home Secretary Common to the Speaker. It doesn’t have a particular deadline; the Home’s guidelines handbook solely says it should be carried out “instantly.”
In impact, the Secretary Common can let the impeachment complaints languish in his desk so the Speaker received’t obtain it, and received’t be constitutionally obliged to introduce the criticism within the plenary.
However the authorities justified this step launched by the Home, saying that the one-year-bar rule could possibly be abused if lawmakers suspiciously endorse weak impeachment complaints, realizing it might be simply dismissed — in the end shielding the impeachable official.
In the course of the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, impeachment filers within the Home would attempt to beat one another to the punch due to the one-year-bar rule. One complainant, lawyer Oliver Lozano, additionally as soon as confronted allegations that he colluded with Arroyo by submitting a “sham” impeachment criticism meant to undermine the opposition’s personal effort.
“The Structure couldn’t have meant a state of affairs the place any criticism, regardless of how frivolous, absurd, unverified, or dubiously endorsed would, by purpose of the durations underneath Article XI, Part 3 (2) of the Structure, make its technique to the right committee, initiating impeachment proceedings and triggering the one-year bar,” the OSG’s reply learn.
“If that had been so, it might be straightforward for unscrupulous authorities officers to flee impeachment proceedings by having weak and arbitrary impeachment complaints lodged in opposition to themselves, assured that these would at all times be referred to the committee of justice and thereafter fail,” it added.
The OSG additionally mentioned that the Home has constitutional authority to set its personal guidelines on impeachment proceedings.
Article 11, Part 3 (8) of the Structure states: “The Congress shall promulgate its guidelines on impeachment to successfully perform the aim of this part.”
Delay not an act of initiation of criticism
It’s already established within the landmark Supreme Courtroom case Francisco Jr. vs Home of Representatives in 2003 that an impeachment case is barely initiated as soon as it reaches the justice committee.
The OSG identified that the primary three impeachment complaints in opposition to Duterte weren’t referred to the justice committee, so these didn’t set off the “initiation” of the impeachment continuing.
“It’s thus incongruous to insist on the effectivity of the one-year bar regardless of the absence of an impeachment criticism being initiated and even earlier than reaching the stage within the proceedings the place the would-be impeached official is required to do something,” the reply learn.
“Assuming arguendo that some error attended the Home’s remedy of the primary three complaints, this can not function to nullify or impede the proceedings stemming from the fourth impeachment criticism. The fourth impeachment criticism is impartial of the primary three complaints,” it added.
The OSG additionally argued that impeachment is a political train that’s past the Supreme Courtroom’s energy of judicial evaluation.
Duterte’s petition was filed on February 19, and the Home and the Senate had been requested to touch upon it on February 25. The Supreme Courtroom has but to rule on the matter 4 months later. – Rappler.com
