Individual faculty members of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law on Friday expressed “grave concern” on the developments regarding the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, stressing that Congress is empowered with “high prerogatives” on the impeachment process.
Signed by over 80 legal experts as of August 1, the five-page joint statement of the UP Law faculty members warned that the Supreme Court decision which declared the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte unconstitutional has “consequences” that create an “incentive” for filing of sham complaints to trigger the one-year bar rule.
“We express our conviction that Congress is constitutionally vested with high prerogatives and thus deserves the appropriate deference in its procedures and in the conduct of impeachment. At the very least, given the House’s reliance on two decades of precedents and practices, any new rules should be prospective in application,” the statement read.
It added, “We call on our democratic institutions to act in accordance with these fundamental principles, and to foster a full public debate on the impeachment in keeping with constitutional accountability,” it added.
Voting 13-0-2, the SC declared the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte unconstitutional, stressing that it is barred by the one-year rule under the Constitution and that it violates her right to due process.
The Supreme Court ruled that the one-year ban is reckoned from the time an impeachment complaint is dismissed or is no longer viable. The first three impeachment complaints were archived and deemed terminated or dismissed on February 5, 2025 when the House of Representatives endorsed the fourth impeachment complaint, the SC ruled.
The high court said the Senate cannot acquire jurisdiction over the impeachment proceedings. However, the SC added that it is not absolving Duterte from any of the charges against her and that any subsequent impeachment complaint may be filed starting February 6, 2026.
“We the undersigned individual members of the faculty of the University of the Philippines College of law, express our grave concern with the developments in the impeachment of Vice President Sara Z. Duterte,” the statement read.
“[W]e warn that these recent developments undermine impeachment as an indispensable instrument of political accountability for our highest public officials,” it added.
‘Permanent’ change
The faculty members noted that impeachments are “decided only upon the simple question” of whether or not the official should continue to be entrusted with public office. Since the consequence is not civil damages nor imprisonment but removal from public office, they said, elected representatives are the ones to decide on the outcome.
Noting that the Constitution provides that the House has the “exclusive power to initiate” and that the Senate has the “sole power to try and decide” all cases of impeachment, the faculty members said they share the view of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) that “over-judicialization” of the process, meaning court-like procedures are laid down for Congress, “will permanently change impeachment’s nature.”
They also argued that the House merely followed rules set by the Supreme Court in Francisco v. House of Representatives and Gutierrez v. Committee on Justice, which defined initiation of impeachment complaint as filing the impeachment complaint before the House and referring it to the chamber’s committee on justice.
“This could not be an abuse of discretion, much less a grave one,” the faculty members said.
Any changes should be applied moving forward, they said, and not in Duterte’s impeachment case.
“If the Court intended to lay out new rules for the House, then the ‘reliance of the public thereto prior to their being declared unconstitutional’ calls for at least a prospective application of its decision and not the nullification of the House’s actions,” they said.
Compliance by the House
Further, they said judicial review is only for cases where there is abuse, but not in the Vice President’s case because the House complied with rules previously set by the high tribunal.
Likewise, the UP College of Law Faculty members backed former Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna, who had warned that the High Court’s decision on the Duterte case contradicts the Constitution’s intent to make impeachments easier to initiate.
“The Duterte ruling has consequences that the parties themselves did not appear to contemplate,” they said, noting that the plenary now has the power to block resolutions for impeachment.
“The ruling creates an incentive for the filing of sham complaints to trigger the one-year bar rule—a political strategy once criticized by a justice as making ‘a mockery of the power of impeachment.’ Narrower rulings in the past have precisely avoided these unintended consequences,” they said.
Due process
Further, the faculty members said the House did not violate the right of the Vice President to due process because the Senate impeachment court is the proper venue to defend herself as provided by the Constitution.
“While Article 6, Section 21 of the Constitution requires the ‘rights of persons appearing in, or affected by” legislative inquiries ‘shall be respected,’ no similar rule applies in Article 11, Section 3 on impeachment. Impeachment has thus never required the observance of due process that applies to administrative proceedings: the impeachment trial is itself the due process,” they said.
“This is not because the Constitution intended to be oppressive towards a respondent. Instead, and following congressional practice, the right to be heard of an impeachable officer is honored in the trial before the Senate,” they added.
Finally, the UP College of Law faculty members said that unlike in legal proceedings, the principal aim of impeachment is not to litigate a right of the impeachable officer, but to protect the public and enforce accountability.
“A reading of the Constitution to further accountability requires a return to the paradigm of protecting the people and a reiteration of the principle that public office is a public trust—a sacred privilege, not a god-given right,” they said.
“As academics, our only client is the truth. And while the course of Vice President Duterte’s impeachment has veered further away from discovering it, we write with hope that our democratic institutions will, with statesmanship and prudence, allow us, the people, to eventually find our way towards restoring accountability,” they added. — Llanesca T. Panti/ VDV, GMA Integrated News
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