A GROUP of complainants in the third impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte yesterday filed a motion asking the Supreme Court (SC) to reverse its July 25 resolution invalidating the Articles of Impeachment and declaring it as unconstitutional.
It was the fifth such motion to be filed asking the SC to revisit its ruling.
Those who had earlier filed similar motions were the House of Representatives, several members of the first impeachment complaint, retired SC justices Antonio Carpio and Conchita Carpio Morales, and members of the Makabayan bloc.
In its motion for reconsideration and intervention, the group led by lawyer Joel Mahinay of the Union People’s Lawyers of Mindanao and Fr. Joel Saballa of the Diocese of Novaliches said they are hopeful that the SC will reverse its ruling.
“Naniniwala kami na wala kaming mali at tama ang aming ginawang proseso. Sana pagbigyan kami ng SC na mailatag ang aming ebidensya (We believe that we have done the right thing and we followed the process. Hopefully, the SC will give us the opportunity to present our evidence),” Saballa told reporters.
“We’re still hoping that the SC will listen to us. This is for accountability, not for political persecution,” he also said.
The petition was also signed by Fr. Antonio Labiao and Ruben Villanueva of the Diocese of Novaliches, Wilfredo Villanueva and Pinky Tam of the NGO Stand Up for God Rosary Group, and Maria Loreto Lopez, co-founder of the Matina community pantry and member of the Samahan ng mga Detainees Laban sa Detention at para sa Amnesty.
Their counsel, Amando Virgil Ligutan, told reporters that they filed the motion due to the “glaring errors of fact” in the SC decision.
“The complainants were there, they were inside the House on February 5 and they witnessed what transpired there that day… With all due respect to the SC, we exhort most respectfully the SC to look into this matter once and for all,” Ligutan said, adding that if the House committed a violation, then the SC should not have punished the third set of complainants who complied with the procedure.
“Pwede naman i-order ng SC yung HoR to refer the third set of complaints to the justice committee. Bakit nasama sa pag-di-dismiss yung isang complaint na wala namang nilabag sa batas? (The SC should have just ordered the HoR to refer the third set of complaints to the justice committee. Why did it also dismiss the complaint that did not violate any law),” he also said.
“The message of the third set of complainants is simple: that the Constitution is supposed to protect the state from the highest public officials like the Vice President. It should not be the other way around. The law and the Constitution should not be used to protect the Vice President from the people of the Philippines,” he added.
ACCOUNTABILITY
In filing the motion, the petitioners questioned the basis and the explanations raised in the assailed SC ruling, saying that these departed from the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution.
“The requisites for the impeachment process, as laid down by the Honorable Court in Duterte, appear to depart from the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, which envisioned a more accessible and responsive mechanism for accountability, as made evident in the deliberation of the Constitutional Commission,” they said.
They said the process of impeachment should not be bogged down by narrow, restrictive terms that defeat the very spirit of the Constitution.
“Every rule or procedure must be interpreted in a manner that promotes and upholds the fundamental objective of ensuring public accountability. The process must never be reduced to a hollow exercise in formality, but must serve its vital constitutional role: to preserve the people’s trust in those who govern,” they also said.
They added that it is not the judiciary’s role to intrude upon the prerogatives of its co-equal branches.
The petitioners also stressed that the authority to initiate and decide impeachment proceedings rests with the House and the Senate, respectively.
“To exceed those limits is not only to risk judicial overreach but to disturb the delicate balance of powers that defines our democratic system,” they said.
SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES
In their plea, the petitioners argued that contrary to the SC’s ruling, the House was not guilty of inaction on the first three impeachment complaints.
They said the House included the said impeachment complaints in the order of business within the required 10 session days.
“With all due respect, the Honorable Court committed factual and legal errors. The House neither neglected nor willfully failed to act on the first three impeachment complaints. From the filing of the first impeachment complaint, the House had 10 session days to include it in the Order of Business. And the House had an additional three days, within which period, it had to refer it to the Committee on Justice,” the petition said.
It added that the number of complaints filed did not matter so long as the complaints were referred within the given period, thus, the House violated no constitutional provisions.
“Here, although four impeachment complaints were filed before the Secretary General, only one initiated the proceeding. Again, although there were four matchsticks, only one of them lit the candle,” it said.
It said that if the House is guilty of inaction or unjustified delay, it was so at the expense of the people’s right to accountability.
“Punishing the proponents of the first three impeachment complaints, then, ran counter to the very purpose of impeachment. To declare the impeachment complaints to be dismissed was not only unconstitutional but unjust and unfair to the movant-intervenors, who filed a legitimate impeachment complaint,” it said.
The petitioners added that the SC’s use of “legal fiction” changed the nature of impeachment, from a “tool that primarily protects the state to one that protects the public official.”
“Since not one of the elements of the due process clause is extant, this Honorable Court erred when it declared that the House violated that constitutional protection,” they said.
Likewise, they argued that impeachment proceeding is not a criminal proceeding where the due process clause in the Constitution should be applied.
JUDICIAL OVERREACH
They also accused the SC of “judicial overreach” and of encroaching on the exclusive powers of Congress to weigh and appreciate evidence in impeachment proceedings.
By imposing a “quantum of evidence,” the petitioners said, the SC was interpreting the constitutional limits on the House and Senate’s power in impeachment cases.
They added that by imposing new rules, the SC, effectively, became the final arbiter, not the House or the Senate, on whether the evidence needed to impeach and convict a public official is sufficient.
“With all due respect, movant-intervenors believe this is already judicial overreach. It runs counter to the basic principle of the separation of powers,” the petitioners said.
Lastly, they said the SC ruling in the Francisco case is the sounder way of interpreting the provisions of impeachment.
“It clearly delineates the powers of the Honorable Court and Congress on impeachment matters. Here, no clear distinction exists between where Congress’s power ends and where this Honorable Court’s begins,” they said.
