Inday Sara’s petition

Vice President Inday Sara Duterte has only just begun. 

Four days ago, Feb. 18, Vice President Sara took her impeachment fight to the Supreme Court when she asked the issuance of a temporary restraining order to stop her impeachment trial at the Senate. 

Senate President Francis Escudero has already asked the Office of the Solicitor-General to act as the lawyer of the Senate. 

The impeachment case against the highest voted official in Philippine history is obviously a legal farce railroaded by the unholy alliance of the Marcos-Romualdez-Araneta triumvirate with the Reds and Pinklawans. The alleged promise of P25-million allocation for AKAP, P25 million for AICS and P100 million for infrastructure under DPWH-Osec has been exposed by congressmen themselves in their defense of their impeachment vote. 

The impeachment process raised a constitutional issue, as VP Sara accused the House of Representatives of “grave abuse of discretion” for deliberately circumventing a constitutional safeguard against more than one impeachment proceeding against the same official within one year. 

To remind our dear readers, there were three impeachment complaints filed in December 2024, which the House of Representatives Secretary General deliberately did not refer to the committee on justice. The fourth impeachment complaint filed on Feb. 5, 2025 was used with the necessary signatures to fast-track the process. 

Here we can see that the 19th Congress allowed multiple impeachment complaints against the VP, directly violating the Constitution. 

On the same day of VP Sara’s filing, a group of lawyers filed a similar petition before the High Court challenging the legality of the impeachment and referring to the impeachment case as “procedurally defective, constitutionally infirm and jurisdictionally void.”

It is good that the Vice President argued, citing the Constitution, that “no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within the period of one year.”

“The Fourth Impeachment Complaint is prohibited by the One-Year Bar as respondent House of Representatives already took initial action by deliberately freezing the First Three Impeachment Complaints; respondent Senate should be enjoined from acting on the Fourth Impeachment Complaint,” VP Sara stated in her petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by her legal team.

Incidentally, former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte is part of the legal team of the VP, alongside VP Sara’s father-in-law Lucas Carpio Jr. and lawyers from Fortun, Narvasa and Salazar Law. Frankly, with the former president as an impeachment counsel, the impeachment trial would be an absolute cinema for millions of Filipinos. Filipinos are getting excited. 

The petition added, “There is no question at this point that the freezing of the First Three Impeachment Complaints was calculated and deliberately made by respondent House of Representatives in order to avoid the application of the One-Year Bar.”

As expected, anti-Duterte forces led by the Makabayan Bloc in the House of Representatives strongly condemned the legal move of the Vice President to halt the Senate impeachment trial, calling VP Sara as “desperate” and “scared.”

As an impeachment veteran of sorts, I share the legal view of VP Sara that the fourth impeachment complaint is prohibited. A similar impeachment case took place more than 20 years ago. I filed a petition in the Supreme Court prohibiting the House of Representatives from transmitting to the Senate the Articles of Impeachment against then chief justice Hilario Davide. We won the case on the ground that the second impeachment complaint filed against CJ Davide is invalid because of the one-year bar rule.

The first impeachment complaint was filed against then CJ Davide on June 2, 2003, referred to the House committee on justice on Aug. 5, 2023 and dismissed by the House committee on justice on Oct. 22, 2003. A day later, Oct. 23, a second impeachment complaint against then CJ Davide was filed. It is very clear in the Davide impeachment that it violates the constitutional prohibition against the initiation of impeachment proceedings against the same impeachable officer within a one-year period. 

In its decision, the High Court ruled that “initiation takes place by the act of filing, coupled with Congress’ taking action on the complaint.” 

The question that needs to be addressed in the Duterte impeachment is: when did the beginning or the initiation of the impeachment proceeding take place? Yes, there is the filing of the complaint but there is no referral to the committee on justice. 

Is the non-action, or freezing, on the three impeachment complaints considered action?

We leave it up to the Supreme Court to decide. 

The impeachment of VP Inday is not about people’s quest for the truth and the accountability of public officers. It is about the Marcos Forever scheme and the only way for this evil plan to succeed is to disqualify the Vice President from holding public office for life.  

However, in their obsession to kick out Inday Sara Duterte, the dominant candidate, in the political landscape, these anti-Duterte forces, beaming with their Merry Christmas smiles, committed their biggest blunder with their invalid fourth impeachment complaint.

And as the campaign season begins, we are seeing impeachment as the election campaign issue. The next battleground is the Senate and the stakes are high. The composition of that august body is crucial to the conviction or acquittal of the VP. Let us ensure all the candidates of the PDP, including their guest candidates, win in 2025.