Supreme Court Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando said the House of Representatives took ”deliberate’’ actions to circumvent the one-year bar rule in relation to the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Hernando was one of the 13 justices who voted on Friday to strike down the impeachment complaint pending before the Senate, ruling that it violated Duterte’s right to due process and constitutional protection against multiple impeachment proceedings against the same official in a single year.
According to the SC, the adjournment of session effectively terminated the three impeachment complaints, preventing the fourth, which was supported by over 200 congressmen, from going to trial in the Senate.
”[T]he House abused its discretion when it tolerated and approved the Secretary General’s act of withholding action on the first three impeachment complaints,’’ Hernando said in his concurring opinion, noting that the House ”methodically placed the three complaints in limbo.”
Media interviews with several House members also revealed that they were unaware of any caucus scheduled for February 5, 2025, and its agenda and that they were not given prior notice of the existence of the fourth complaint, the justice said.
”The lack of transparency regarding the caucus, the abrupt manner in which it was convened, and the lack of a clear communication, collectively suggest a deliberate effort to withhold information from members of the House. These actions clearly demonstrate a calculated and hastened effort to push the fourth impeachment complaint with deliberate speed and minimal scrutiny,” Hernando said.
”The totality of attendant circumstances reveals the true nature of the House’s action: to circumvent the one-year bar rule in order to fabricate a superficially legal strategy and make the fourth complaint viable. The move was as clever as it was iniquitous and a prime example of a technically legal but highly immoral maneuver—a mere subterfuge for political gain, for it exploited a weak point in our democratic institutions,’’ he added.
He said the House Secretary General’s argument that the one-year bar rule did not apply since the first three complaints were never referred to the House Committee on Justice was ”an excuse so lame and convenient that it is extremely difficult to ignore the impunity that comes with it.’’
However, ”one may take the unpopular perspective that the House of Representatives’ seeming inaction on the first three impeachment complaints served as a mantle of protection to VP Duterte and saved her from the burden of having to answer all allegations against her all at once,’’ said Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda.
Associate Justice Samuel Gaerlan, for his part, said that Duterte was not given due process in the course of the impeachment proceedings in the House.
”Here, as admitted by the House in their compliance before the Court, VP Sara was not given the opportunity to be heard in relation to the fourth Articles of Impeachment transmitted to the Senate. The House posits that neither the Constitution nor the House Rules imposes any requirement of prior opportunity to be heard,’’ Gaerlan said in his concurring opinion.
”[T]he fundamental right to due process applies in all proceedings. Impeachment is not an exception,’’ he added.
‘’[D]ue to the House’s violation of VP Sara’s right to due process, the fourth Articles of Impeachment is null and void.’’
Associate Justice Jhosep Lopez said that while the Constitution allows the direct filing of an impeachment complaint upon the endorsement of at least one-third of all House members, ”this expedited process must not come at the expense of the respondent public official’s constitutional rights.’’
No crossover
Both Hernando and Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting opined that the Senate of the 20th Congress, which opens on July 28, could no longer act on the impeachment complaint.
Inting said the Articles of Impeachment that were transmitted by the 19th Congress were “terminated and rendered inefficacious with the expiration of the term of the 19th Congress on June 30, 2025.’’
”[I]f the Senate of the 20th Congress is allowed to continue with the trial on the subject impeachment complaint, it would have to proceed based on the Articles of Impeachment by the House that no longer exists,’’ he said. ‘’Such a situation is tantamount to the creation of an irrepealable statute, which is constitutionally impermissible.’’
Hernando said the newly elected Congress could not be bound by the actions of the previous Congress.
‘’The fourth impeachment complaint already transmitted and pending before the Senate of the 19th Congress, as the Senate had already convened as an impeachment court, is likewise terminated by reason of the expiration of the term of the 19th Congress,’’ he said.
Duterte was accused of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the constitution, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.
The charges included allegations of misusing confidential funds and threatening to have Speaker Martin Romualdez, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assassinated if she was killed.
The Vice President has denied the allegations.
The SC said that it is not absolving Duterte from any of the charges, and an impeachment complaint can still be filed starting February 6, 2026. —VBL, GMA Integrated News
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