The 15-man Supreme Court (SC) voted unanimously to junk the fourth impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte. The SC, headed by Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, found it unconstitutional and that the Senate and the House of Representatives of the 20th Congress have no jurisdiction to proceed with the impeachment trial of VP Sara.
It took the SC more than four months to act on two petitions to stop the impeach bid vs VP Sara. In a notice dated July 8, the SC en banc required both the Senate and the House to respond to 11 specific questions and submit them within 10 days without extension.
Last Friday (July 25), the SC has mightily spoken. With no participation from two justices, unanimity of 13-0-2 votes came out. Boom! The impeach VP Sara case was busted to smithereens.
The High Court acted with uncanny dispatch. In just a week’s time, the 97-page decision penned by Justice Marvic Leonen was handed down. Such speed is rarely seen from the highest court of the land, where loads of backlogged cases take years to be resolved.
The so-called “gods of Faura” outdid themselves.
Hopefully, this will set the new trend by which the SC resolves all other pending cases before them – with the same speed but dispensed with equal justice to all.
The High Court ruling came out three days before President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) delivers today his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the ceremonial joint opening of sessions of the 20th Congress. Incidentally, this will also be the fourth SONA of PBBM in the remaining three years of his term in office.
As the chief interpreter of the laws of the land and the Constitution, the SC asserted itself as the third co-equal branch of Congress. The others are Congress as the lawmaking body and the Executive department to execute or implement the laws of the land.
The High Court found constitutional infirmities in the fourth impeachment complaint that the Lower House transmitted to the Senate on Feb. 5. The SC ruling cited in particular the violations of the one-year ban on new impeach case under Article 11, Section 3 of the Constitution and the right to due process of all individuals as enshrined in Article 3, or the Bill of Rights.
The first three impeachment cases against VP Sara were filed at the House one after the other in December last year. However, all three cases were archived by the House for unknown reasons. By such act, the High Court ruled such archiving effectively dismissed them. Hence, the one-year ban started from then.
But the House claimed all first three complaints were purportedly consolidated into the seven articles of impeachment in the new version of the case. With 215 House votes, House secretary-general Reginald Velasco transmitted this new version to the Senate a few hours before the 19th Congress adjourned for recess.
The SC acted on the petitions of VP Sara herself filed on Feb. 18 and separate similar petition initiated later by pro-Duterte groups. The twin petitions sought to nullify and dismiss the fourth impeachment case.
Acting on it, the SC required both legislative bodies to submit information regarding the status of the first three impeachment complaints; the exact dates these were endorsed; whether the secretary-general possessed the discretion on when to transmit these to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Escudero repeatedly assuaged the public that all the senators abide by and closely adhere to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, along with existing Senate impeachment processes and procedures. He eventually convened the Senate as impeachment court three days before the sine die adjournment of the third and last regular session of the 19th Congress. All 23 senator-judges were able to take their oaths. But 18 of them signed the Senate Resolution remanding back to the Lower House the questioned fourth impeachment case.
The Senate Resolution asked two basic questions: if the House followed its own rules required on impeachment submission to the Speaker and the House committee on justice. And whether the incoming 20th Congress will continue and assume jurisdiction of the unfinished impeachment trial on VP Sara. By and large, these were the same questions raised by the SC.
Constitutionalists, lawyers as well as non-lawyers and even self-proclaimed legal and political analysts pounced upon and lectured the Senate chief on the finer points of law. A lawyer himself, Escudero could now look back at his most bitter detractors and tell them: “See what I mean.”
On their official comment to comply with the SC order, the Senate legal department explained the senators’ “lack of sufficient information” to respond to these questions pertaining to how the other Chamber acted on these matters. The Lower House, for its part, complied with the SC order by responding through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG). But left three SC questions unanswered.
In its 16-page reply, the OSG instead invoked the separation of powers between three co-equal branches of government. As such, the OSG argued the House can refuse to answer which office or committee prepared the Articles of Impeachment, when these were circulated to House members and if evidence was attached. The OSG also echoed the House refusal to answer whether the lawmakers had time to examine the charges and evidence against the accused impeachable official.
So that’s how the cookie crumbled. Lessons learned as Justice Leonen succinctly admonished in this ruling: “Our fundamental law is clear: the end does not justify the means. There is a right way to do the right thing at the right time.”
But the SC hastened to underscore this ruling did not in any way exonerate VP Sara. In fact, the High Court advised a new impeachment can be filed again on Feb. 6, 2026 or thereafter.
With the “gods of Faura” exercising its powers, it’s now the turn of VP Sara to live up to her promise. She owes the Filipino people the answers to all these accusations from the aborted impeachment trial.