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MANILA, Philippines — Beating the deadline, the defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte submitted late yesterday afternoon her response to the summons of the Senate impeachment court “ad cautelam” or with caution.
Arnel Barrientos Jr., a messenger from the law firm Fortun, Narvasa & Salazar, arrived at the Senate Secretary’s office at 5:49 p.m. to submit her response to the writ of summons issued by the Senate impeachment court on June 10, which her office received the following day.
“I wouldn’t want to second guess the lawyers. They’re filing the pleading with caution. That’s what ad cautelam means. In their mind, they’d like to reserve some arguments. In compliance with the order of the court, they filed their answer, but they’re expressing they are doing so with caution,” said Senate Secretary Renato Bantug Jr., who is also impeachment clerk of court.
In her 35-page reply, Duterte reiterated that the “void ab initio” “Fourth Impeachment Complaint” must be dismissed for violating the constitutional one-year prohibition on initiating impeachment.
“Vice President Sara Duterte, without waiving any jurisdictional and/or other objections she has to this case… respectfully states (that) the Fourth Impeachment Complaint must be dismissed because it is void ab initio for violating the One-Year Bar Rule under Section 3(5) Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the initiation of more than one impeachment proceeding against the same official within a period of one year,” Duterte said in her answer through her counsel.
“There are no statements of ultimate facts in the Fourth Impeachment Complaint. Stripped of its ‘factual’ and legal conclusions, it is nothing more than a scrap of paper,” she added.
“Being laden with conclusions of ‘facts’ and law, the Fourth Impeachment Complaint is a clear abuse of the impeachment process,” Duterte said.
The Vice President said she has “nothing” else to answer “since there are no statements of ultimate facts” yet.
Duterte said she “only admits” to “her personal circumstances, election and assumption” to the Office of Vice President, and her previous office of Davao city mayor and vice mayor.
The House prosecution team has five days or until June 30 to answer Duterte’s reply. Duterte’s formally answering the charges either through an affirmative defense or an answer ad cautelam is one of the legal moves her camp would take as predicted by Senate impeachment court spokesman Reginald Tongol, with the other being a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of the court’s lack of jurisdiction, as the 19th Congress is set to end.
Senate rules state that “trial shall proceed nevertheless” if an impeached official fails to answer the Articles of Impeachment.
Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives for betrayal of public trust in her alleged misuse of her confidential funds, her having unexplained wealth, involvement in the Davao Death Squad killings and her livestreamed remarks threatening to have President Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated.
Still hopeful
In a video of her being interviewed in Melbourne, Duterte said she is hopeful President Marcos would make good on his promise to attend to the needs of the people instead of focusing on her impeachment.
“Well, good for him and we hope to see some sort of truth to his statement that he is focusing on helping our fellow Filipinos and doing something for the country,” Duterte said in the video provided by the Office of the Vice President yesterday.
“Unfortunately, if you talk to the ordinary citizens and the Filipino community abroad, we don’t see anything at all,” she said.
The Vice President was asked of her reaction to Marcos’ statement that he would rather focus on uplifting the lives of Filipinos and leave the issue of Duterte’s impeachment to Congress.
Duterte also balked at criticisms of her frequent foreign travels, particularly to The Hague in the Netherlands where her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, is awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
She had also traveled to Qatar, Malaysia and Australia to meet with Filipino communities.
“I do not like traveling at all except for holidays and clearly, I am not on holiday for this trip. I am here to discuss with the Filipino community on ways forward for our country and of course how we can push the administration to do more for our country,” she said over the weekend.
Duterte said the Philippine government should give importance to the contribution of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), which go beyond the remittances they send back to their loved ones in the country.
“The Philippine government should not discount the contributions of the Filipino communities worldwide because first, they’ve been sending dollars, millions and billions of dollars to the country, and second, they have the experience that people like us who have not worked, have not lived abroad, they have that experience. So, they know the best practices around the world. So, it’s good to sit down and discuss with them,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Ombudsman gave Duterte 10 days to respond to the recommendation of the House committee on good government and public accountability for the filing of criminal charges against her over alleged misuse of confidential funds. The order was issued last June 19.
“We received the order to comment from the ombudsman for 10 days and we intend to file our answer within 10 days,” Duterte said.
“We have been preparing and we have hired lawyers since 2023. So, we will provide the answer within 10 days,” she added.
Committee chairman Rep. Joel Chua, however, said the ombudsman should allow the impeachment trial to proceed first before dealing with Duterte’s possible criminal liability.
Chua cited a Supreme Court jurisprudence on Ombudsman vs Court of Appeals, wherein the SC magistrates held that a Senate impeachment court should finish its trial of an impeachable official first before criminal charges can be filed against such official.
Chua said the jurisprudence effectively bars the ombudsman from taking cognizance of the seven Articles of Impeachment filed against Duterte before the Senate impeachment court. Chua is one of the 11 House prosecutors in Duterte’s looming impeachment trial.
Chua made it clear that while the ombudsman may pursue action against Duterte’s alleged accomplices who are non-impeachable officials, the Vice President herself is protected from prosecution until the Senate has rendered judgment in her impeachment trial.
He said the arrangement is meant to protect the process and not preempt the Senate in its judgment as an impeachment court. — Delon Porcalla
