Legarda says let House exhaust all legal remedies
SEN. Loren Legarda yesterday said the Senate should wait for the House of Representatives to exhaust all legal means before the upper chamber makes any decision on the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte, which was recently declared null and void ab initio by the Supreme Court.
In an interview with radio dzBB, Legarda said that while they should respect the SC decision, the Senate must wait for the House to make its legal moves.
The House has said it would file a motion for reconsideration on the tribunal’s ruling.
The SC en banc, in a 13-0-2 decision issued on July 25, declared the Articles of Impeachment unconstitutional, saying it is barred by the one-year rule under the Constitution. It also said the Senate could not acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment proceedings.
Legarda said the Senate should wait for the motion for reconsideration.
“We should not decide prematurely until the House of Representatives has exhausted all legal remedies. So, due process must be observed regardless of where we stand on the issue. In the pursuit of accountability and justice, truth and fairness must not be forgotten,” Legarda said.
“May MR na ihahain (There is a motion for reconsideration that will be filed). We’ll take it from there,” she added.
Senate President Francis Escudero earlier said senators, during a caucus last week, agreed “that the matter will be decided upon by the Senate on August 6, when we open session on that date in order to afford ample and sufficient time to the members to study the 97-page Supreme Court decision, excluding the concurring and separate opinions filed by five or six additional magistrates of the Supreme Court.”
He also said that the Senate need not convene as an impeachment court due to the SC decision.
Legarda said the Senate should once again hold a caucus before they come up with a decision on the SC ruling. She recalled there was a commitment by the leadership before the 19th Congress adjourned that they will convene as an impeachment court once the 20th Congress starts.
“If I’m not mistaken, before we adjourned, we said that we will reconvene as an impeachment court … I’m not certain that was discussed in the caucus (last July 29) but… there was a commitment to reconvene as an impeachment court in the new Congress,” Legarda said.
“We will see. We will have to look back at the records and what we committed to do and what is the right thing to do,” she added.
The House, through spokesperson Princess Abante, on Saturday urged the Senate to wait for the SC to resolve the motion for reconsideration that the House is set to file before voting to dismiss the impeachment complaint.
“We express deep concern over reports that the Senate may vote to act on the Supreme Court decision regarding the impeachment case against the Vice President —without waiting for the House of Representatives to exhaust its available legal remedies,” Abante said.
She said the ruling “is not yet final.”
Abante has said “any premature action, such as a Senate vote effectively abandoning the impeachment trial, may be interpreted as a disregard of due process.”
Legarda, in the radio interview, said her stand to respect the SC decision is clear, but the Senate should allow due process to take its course.
“There is a process, the motion for reconsideration, and we will just have to wait what will be the [Senate’s] decision, action on that,” she said in mixed Filipino and English.
CHARTER AMENDED
At the House, Manila Rep. Joel Chua yesterday opposed the call of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) for the public to adhere to the decision of the SC, saying the High Court has, in effect, amended the Constitution.
“I dissent because the Constitution is above Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. The Supreme Court, being the ‘court of last resort,’ cannot supplant, expand, or add to the Constitution. Their latest decision on impeachment did supplant, expand, and add to what the Constitution so clearly provides,” said Chua, a member of the House of Representatives’ 11-man prosecution panel.
Chua said that contrary to the SC claims of procedural impropriety, the House “acted within its exclusive constitutional authority to advance the Articles of Impeachment.”
“I understand where the IBP is coming from. In fact, I empathize. But we in the House have the exclusive power to advance Articles of Impeachment exactly as the Constitution provides. We did not act in disregard of due process,” he said. “We acted according to the last legal resort available to the Filipino people when the highest and impeachable public officials violate the public trust.”
The IBP, in a statement last Saturday, said calls to defy the tribunal’s ruling “erode the very foundations of the legal order.”
“Such actions disturb the equilibrium of powers and imperil the integrity of our democratic institutions, especially when appropriate legal remedies remain available within the framework of our constitutional system,” it said.
The House impeached Duterte last February based on various allegations, including her alleged misuse of a total of P612.5 million in confidential funds disbursed by both the Department of Education, which she used to head as secretary, and the Office of the Vice President, through the use of dubious recipients such as the now infamous “Mary Jane Piattos.”
Duterte faced seven Articles of Impeachment, which also raised her use of P125 million in just 11 days in December 2022 when she was still education secretary.
The House leadership has said it would appeal the SC’s decision because of factual errors in the ruling, particularly the High Court’s claim that the impeachment articles were transmitted to the Senate without the House’s plenary approval.
Abante has said the SC’s conclusion that the February complaint violated the constitutional one-year bar rule was clearly based on a “factual and procedural inversion.”
Sen. Rodante Marcoleta has expressed doubt that any of the magistrates will reverse himself, acting on a motion for reconsideration from the House.
In an interview with NET-25 network on Friday last week, Marcoleta said he has not seen the SC reverse itself in his years as litigation lawyer.
He said the words “immediately executory” should be a cue that the SC has closed the door or windows for any individual or group to file a motion for reconsideration.
“If you are a practicing lawyer, the doors and windows have been closed for you to make an appeal over the Supreme Court decision. Just think of it, it is void ab initio. Unconstitutional. The Senate never acquired jurisdiction over it. Immediately executory,” Marcoleta said in mixed Filipino and English.
He said even if seven magistrates reverse their decision, it will not be enough to overturn the majority decision of eight justices. – With Wendell Vigilia
