ASEANEWS HEADLINE | MANILA: Chiz: No impeach trial during election break
LIVE: Senate President Chiz Escudero holds press conference | Feb. 6
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Senate President Francis Escudero answers queries from the media during the Kapihan sa Senado weekly forum on February 6, 2025, in Pasay City. (Photo by Noy Morcoso | INQUIRER.net)
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Trial begins on June 2
MANILA, Philippines — The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte will have to wait at least until June or after the midterm elections, Senate President Francis Escudero said yesterday.
“I will state on the record: as a matter of policy, we will not be pressured to rush this,” Escudero said, referring to an anticipated impeachment trial, at the Kapihan sa Senado forum. “We will do our sworn duties under the Constitution.”
Some quarters are pushing for an impeachment trial before the May elections. The impeachment of Duterte came on the last day of session on Wednesday. Session resumes on June 2 until June 13.
Escudero dismissed claims that the impeachment complaint is in limbo, because the Senate adjourned session for the break without tackling the Articles of Impeachment transmitted by the House of Representatives.
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This means there will be no impeachment trial during the campaign season for the May midterm elections, although Duterte’s impeachment for alleged misuse of confidential funds and her threatening remarks against President Marcos will surely be election issues, according to Escudero.
He said there is no legal basis for an impeachment trial to start during election season because the impeachment complaint was not brought up before the plenary during the last session day on Wednesday.
“Legally, it cannot be done. The impeachment court was not convened. The complaint was not referred to the plenary for there to be a basis for an impeachment court to be convened by a Senate,” Escudero said.
This means the senators who are seeking reelection – Ronald dela Rosa, Bong Go, Francis Tolentino, Imee Marcos, Pia Cayetano, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Lito Lapid – can focus on their campaign and not be distracted by serving as judges in an impeachment court.
The break will instead be dedicated to reviewing the rules of the impeachment court, which need to be updated based on existing court rules, Escudero said.
He recalled that proceedings in the impeachment of resigned ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and the late ousted chief justice Renato Corona also took months of preparation before a full blown trial began.
Gutierrez’s impeachment complaint was transmitted in March 2011 and the trial that was supposed to start when Senate resumed session May was aborted upon her resignation.
Corona’s impeachment complaint was filed in December 2011 and trial started in January the following year.
Asked why no House member initiated the transmittal of the Articles of Impeachment before adjournment, Escudero said there might be some staff work that needed to done, like making sure that the signatures of the 215 House members who endorsed the complaint were “wet signatures” and not e-signatures.
“Congress sat on this for over two months for them to study the impeachment complaint. Two months passed when the House Secretary General did not forward the impeachment complaint to the Speaker’s office to be referred to plenary or the committee,” Escudero explained. “Why should the Senate then act immediately?”
“If House slacked off and sat on this for months, then they have no basis to pressure us into rushing this,” he pointed out.
There were also concerns that should the trial proceed only in June, the senators of the 19th Congress would only have two weeks of session days – from June 2 to 13 – to hold a pretrial conference where evidence are discussed ahead of a full-blown trial.
There will also be a new set of 12 senators by June, changing the composition of the next 20th Congress.
For Escudero, evidence may still be carried over and trial may continue during the 20th Congress, even when there will be a new composition of judges to scrutinize the evidence.
Escudero stressed the 24-member Senate is a “continuing body” – with 12 remaining and 12 outgoing senators every election, and that as an impeachment panel it will function as a “court of record.”
“That is my belief. Impeachment is separate from the Senate’s function as a legislature. Cases in court do not get dismissed when there is a change of justice or judge,” said Escudero, a lawyer.
Whatever happens, Escudero said Duterte’s impeachment trial – the first for a vice president of the country – will be an election issue.
“We should not be afraid of this. If this is an election issue, then so be it. Who doesn’t want an issue-based election?” he said.
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No problem
For members of the 11-man House prosecution team, the Senate timeline for an impeachment trial is acceptable.
Reps. Lorenz Defensor of Iloilo and Rodge Gutierrez of 1Rider party-list – both lawyers by profession – revealed their position at a news conference yesterday.
“Since the Senate is an independent body and we respect their independence, (Congress) being a bicameral legislature, we will leave that to the interpretation of the Senate,” Defensor said.
“If you will ask us if the Senate will convene as an Impeachment Court in June and they might be pressed for time, will this cross over to the next 20th Congress (2025-2028)? It is possible and yes we will leave it to the Senate and to the rules of the impeachment court,” he said.
Gutierrez shared the same opinion. “It’s sui generis (a class of its own), a special instance of a constitutionally mandated function of Congress,” he said, noting trial could continue even with the election of new members of the House in May “because the Senate is a continuing body.”
“The House leadership is already preparing the impeachment secretariat so we will be prepared. If ever the Senate does indeed interpret that they could proceed with trial as early as March, we will be ready. If they decide that it will continue after June 2, we will be even more ready,” he said.
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Ball in Senate’s hands
The ball is in the Senate’s hands, according to Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro. “I humbly believed, on our end, we cannot do anything about it because the impeachment court is the Senate. So, for as long as that they did not convene as an impeachment court, and for as long as they did not take their oath as judges of the impeachment court, I don’t think we will be able to start this impeachment trial,” Luistro said in an interview with “Storycon” on One News. “So, indeed the ball is now in the Senate.”
Luistro also defended the House for the delay in the transmittal of the complaint. She said that the fourth impeachment complaint was a consolidation of the three impeachment complaints filed and endorsed by Akbayan, the Makabayan bloc and a group of lawyers and priest in December last year.
“But, of course, as prosecutors, our job is different and it is also different from the 23 senators who will be sitting as an impeachment court judges. I hope they will be resolving this matter in favor of the impeachment so that, at least, we can fulfill our constitutional duty for the Filipino people,” she said.
In a separate interview, Manila 3rd district Rep. Joel Chua also said it’s now the Senate’s job to take the impeachment case to its justifiable end.
“They have to adopt first the rules of impeachment or amend it to choose what rules they would adopt in the trial,” Chua, one of the prosecutors, said. “People will say many things to us regardless of whatever we will do. On our part, we are just doing our constitutional mandate.”
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV also said there’s nothing with the Senate’s convening an impeachment court only after the elections.
“There’s no problem with that. Legal experts have studied the Constitution, and many legal opinions state that the impeachment process is continuous, just like in the courts,” Trillanes said.
Act Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro, for her part, scored Escudero for blaming the House for the delay in the transmittal of the impeachment complaint to the Senate.
“There is no time constraint there. They should not resort to blame game and blame us for not transmitting the complaint immediately. As the saying goes, if there is willingness, it can be done. But if they don’t, there are many alibis,” Castro said.
For veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, the present Senate must finish the trial before it adjourns because the next Senate cannot take it up as a continuing case.
He cited a Supreme Court ruling on the controversial “Garci tape” controversy in 2008 stating that “unpassed bills and even legislative investigations of the Senate of a particular Congress are considered terminated upon the expiration of that Congress and it is merely optional on the Senate of the succeeding Congress to take up such unfinished matters.” – Delon Porcalla, Jose Rodel Clapano, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Mayen Jaymalin, Mark Ernest Villeza
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