SEN. Francis Pangilinan yesterday said a draft resolution urging the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte has been signed by four senators.
The House has said it would appeal the decision issued last Friday because it has “factual errors.”
Pangilinan said those who have signed, aside from him, were Senate minority leader Vicente Sotto III, deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros, and Sen. Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino.
“Others we have spoken to are reviewing it,” he said.
Pangilinan, who drafted the resolution with Hontiveros and Aquino, said they started circulating it on Monday, the day President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his state of the nation address (SONA).
Pangilinan, Hontiveros, and Aquino have issued a statement opposing the SC decision declaring the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte unconstitutional for violating the one-year ban of the 1987 Constitution in the filing of the complaint.
“After we had that statement, we brought it (resolution) to the attention of the majority in the caucus. But before that, I presented it during the SONA to some of the other senators who said they would review it,” he said.
In an interview with Rappler’s “In the Public Square” yesterday, Pangilinan said he has been in talks with senators since the fourth SONA, asking them to sign the resolution on how they can proceed with the impeachment trial.
Pangilinan said the draft resolution contains the opinion of legal luminaries regarding the SC decision, including that of former Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna.
Part of the resolution, copies of which were given to the Senate media, said, “Justice Azcuna highlights that while the 97-page decision in the Vice President’s case may be legally correct, it strikes him as ‘grossly unfair’ because ‘it rules the Articles of Impeachment adopted by the House of Representatives as violating the only one complaint within one year rule by crafting a new definition of what constitutes being initiated and applying it to a complaint adopted in reliance on its previous and then prevailing definition.’”
The draft resolution added Azcuna “respectfully urged the Supreme Court to issue a supplemental resolution and apply the Doctrine of Operative Facts, which states that the actions taken and things done in reliance on a former and then-prevailing definition (or in the absence of one) should be treated as valid.”
“It is the Senate’s position that a reconsideration by the Supreme Court of its ruling would reconcile the constitutional provisions on the Supreme Court’s power to judicial review, the House of Representatives’ power to initiate impeachment complaints, and the Senate’s power to try and decide impeachment cases. This would ensure that all powers are given proper effect, consistent with the entrenched principle of constitutional construction established in Civil Liberties Union vs. the Executive Secretary, which states that one constitutional provision should not negate the other,” it added.
Hontiveros said the minority will block attempts to have the complaint dismissed outright. She said it would be “premature” to move or even vote for the dismissal of the complaint without first hearing the evidence to be presented by the prosecution team.
When their colleagues move to dismiss the complaint, she said, it will be subjected to intense debates.
“I am ready, we in the minority are ready to present our arguments, our opinions,” she said in Filipino at the Kapihan sa Senado media forum.
