The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, has scheduled the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte to begin on July 6. The vice president meantime continues to challenge the validity of the charges filed against her.
Senate Secretary Atty. Renato Bantug Jr. said the trial will initially be held every Monday to Wednesday, with Thursdays reserved for motions. Following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27, the trial schedule will shift to Tuesday through Thursday afternoons to allow the Senate to conduct its regular plenary sessions in the mornings.
Ahead of the proceedings, Duterte maintained that the Articles of Impeachment are legally defective and should be dismissed.
In her full response submitted on May 25 and later released by the Senate, Duterte argued that the impeachment complaint is “void” because it is “tainted with manifest partiality and evident bad faith indicative of prejudgment.”
She claimed that statements made by members of the House of Representatives declaring that they already had enough votes to impeach her while committee proceedings were still pending showed that the outcome had already been predetermined.
“The speeches of House members declaring ‘enough votes’ to impeach her despite pending proceedings demonstrate that the resulting alleged finding of probable cause was a foregone conclusion,” Duterte said in her response.
The vice president also described the Articles of Impeachment as “a product of unconstitutional usurpation of power,” arguing that the proceedings before the House Committee on Justice were merely a “procedural artifice” intended to damage her reputation before the public.
She further questioned the inclusion of allegations involving acts allegedly committed during her tenure as Davao City mayor and vice mayor, saying these were non-impeachable positions and therefore should not form part of the impeachment complaint.
Duterte also claimed that pieces of evidence cited in the Articles of Impeachment were introduced only after she had already submitted her answer, depriving her of the opportunity to address them and violating her constitutional right to due process.
She reiterated her earlier argument that the complaints stemmed from a “fishing expedition” and alleged that they violated the Constitution’s one-year bar rule governing impeachment complaints.
“Like the Saballa and Cabrera Complaints upon which they are based, the Articles contain no statement of any ultimate facts as the allegations therein remain to be mere speculations, conjectures, conclusions and surmises,” Duterte said.
“The Articles do not contain any sufficient factual and legal bases to sustain any impeachable offense,” she added.
The House Committee on Justice earlier found sufficient grounds to elevate the impeachment complaint to the plenary. On May 11, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Duterte and subsequently transmitted the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.
The Articles accuse Duterte of the alleged misuse of confidential funds, alleged unexplained wealth, alleged bribery involving officials of the Department of Education, and an alleged plot to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and a former House Speaker.
