VICE-PRESIDENT Sara Duterte-Carpio — OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter

VICE-PRESIDENT (VP) Sara Duterte-Carpio on Monday asked the Senate to dismiss the impeachment complaint against her, describing the attempt to remove her from office as a “clear abuse” of power.

In a pleading, her lawyers said that her impeachment violated the 1987 Constitution’s prohibition against multiple impeachment proceedings, adding that the allegations are baseless.

“There are no statements of ultimate facts in the fourth impeachment complaint,” she said in the pleading, a copy of which was sent to the House of Representatives.

“Stripped of its ‘factual’ and legal conclusions, it is nothing more than a piece of scrap paper.”

Ms. Duterte, a likely contender in the 2028 presidential election, faces accusations of budget anomalies, amassing unexplained wealth and plotting the assassination of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. his wife and the Speaker. She has denied any wrongdoing.

She was impeached without a hearing on the final day of the congressional session in February, after more than 200 lawmakers endorsed a fourth complaint that consolidated three filings since December.

Ms. Duterte said the House of Representatives “deliberately withheld” its referral of the three impeachment complaints filed against her by activists, clergymen and civil society groups.

She accused the House secretary-general of deliberately withholding the first three impeachment complaints — allegedly upon the instruction by congressmen — to avoid the application of the one-year ban.

“This is a direct contravention… of the 1987 Constitution,” she added.

House Secretary-General Reginald S. Velasco did not immediately reply to a Viber message seeking comment.

The Vice-President also said her trial could not continue in the 20th Congress, citing a lack of constitutional provision allowing an impeachment trial to cross from one Senate to another.

“Only the Senate of the present Congress can try and decide an impeachment case,” she said. “The proceedings of this case should be dismissed outright as these cannot cross over.”

The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, earlier sent the ouster charges back to the House to certify that it did not violate the Constitution when it impeached the Vice-President.

The court had ordered the Vice-President to respond to its summons within 15-days. House prosecutors will have five days to reply to her comment.

The trial is expected to start in late July under the 20th Congress.