Impeach team eyes SC plea if Senate junks case

BATTLEGROUND The Supreme Court building on Padre Faura Street in Manila, the expected arena for impeachment issues. —Inquirer file photo

MANILA, Philippines — The team of House lawmakers assembled to prosecute Vice President Sara Duterte could seek recourse from the Supreme Court should the Senate as impeachment court decide to dismiss its complaint outright without trial—a possibility again floated by Senate President Francis Escudero.

This was what House prosecution team spokesperson Antonio Bucoy said although he hoped “it would never come to that point.”

“We trust the process of impeachment, and we trust that the senator-judges would perform their constitutional duty and abide by their oath. Now, if they put [any motion for dismissal] to a vote, we cannot stop that because they are the judges. Our only recourse is to elevate it to the Supreme Court,” Bucoy said in a press conference last Thursday.

“But hopefully we would never have to do it … hopefully they would do what is right,” he added.

READ: Cayetano warns vs rushed dismissal of impeachment raps

He clarified that a dismissal without trial would not yet constitute a constitutional crisis “because there is still that option to elevate to the Supreme Court.”

Possible scenarios

In another press conference on Friday, Bucoy said there would only be such a crisis if the high court granted the House’s petition for the trial to move forward but the Senate defies such a decision.

The veteran human rights lawyer foresees that they could file a petition for certiorari “to question the abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction” and mandamus “to compel the court to proceed with the trial.”

“But I doubt they won’t follow (if ever the Supreme Court sides with the prosecution), they’ll comply,” he said.

Bucoy’s remarks come after Escudero insinuated that a majority vote for a motion for dismissal would be enough to throw out the articles of impeachment accusing Duterte of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, and plunder for her alleged misuse of confidential funds and for threatening to assassinate President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez.

The complaint, endorsed by 215 lawmakers on Feb. 5, was remanded to the House by a June 10 Senate order that many legal experts call unconstitutional.

Counteraffidavit

In another development, Duterte’s camp has filed a counteraffidavit in response to allegations on the alleged misappropriation of confidential funds.

Lawyer Michael Poa, who also serves as the spokesperson for the Vice President’s defense team in the impeachment trial, confirmed the filing in the Office of the Ombudsman but declined to provide copies.

“My sincere apologies but I will not be furnishing copies for now to the media, out of respect for all the parties concerned including the Honorable Ombudsman,” Poa told the Inquirer. He is also part of the 16-member defense team.

The counteraffidavit, whose copy was not furnished in full to reporters, was in compliance with the June 19 directive of the Office of the Ombudsman for Duterte to answer the charges of technical malversation, falsification and use of falsified documents, perjury, bribery and corruption, plunder, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.

Duterte has recently responded to the Senate impeachment court’s summons asking to nullify the complaint altogether on the basis of the remand order, and for supposedly violating the one-year bar rule on impeachment cases.

The House prosecution team filed its own pleading last Friday asking the Senate to begin trial as the “severity of the charges leaves no room for technical evasion.”—with a report from Kathleen de Villa