Hoping for a reversal of the Supreme Court decision

By Herbert Vego

DOES the House of Representatives expect a reversal of the Supreme Court’s decision rendering the impeachment articles against Vice President Sara Duterte unconstitutional, therefore null and void?

Yes, according to its spokesperson Princess Abante, “because the decision is based on premises or findings that are wrong and contrary to the official record of the House.”

At press time, the House is preparing to file a motion for reconsideration to that effect.

In the opinion of UP College of Law professor Dante Gatmaytan, “The Supreme Court decisions are not edicts from heaven. It is our responsibility as citizens and members of the academe to point out what might be wrong about a Supreme Court decision.”

Indeed, as viewed by a number of legal luminaries, the Supreme Court had erred in its ruling that the impending impeachment trial of Duterte in the Senate-turned-impeachment court was a violation a constitutional provision against multiple impeachment proceedings within a single year.

For example, retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna begged to disagree in a statement released to both the streamline and online media the other day.

The contested Article XI, Section 3, paragraph (5) of the 1987 Philippine Constitution reads: “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”

Azcuna, incidentally, was one of the 50 appointed members of the Constitutional Commission that framed the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

To recall, between December 2024 and February 2025, four impeachment complaints were filed against Vice President Duterte. Three came from private citizens and groups; the fourth was initiated by more than a third of House members.

The SC held that the House of Representatives’ handling of the first three complaints—specifically, leaving them without referral to a committee—did not mean those complaints were never initiated.

But the position of the House which forwarded the 4th impeachment complaint to the Senate was that the first three complaints had been archived and therefore did not trigger the one-year bar on new impeachment complaints.

Thus, according to the House, only one impeachment complaint against VP Sara Duterte was passed by 215 congressmen and forwarded to the Senate.

The SC was conflicting itself. In its decision on Francisco vs. House of Representatives (November 10, 2003), the SC held that the one-year bar was triggered only upon proper initiation of a complaint. A lengthy discussion on this matter may be accessed online.

The 13-0-2 decision of the members of the Supreme Court junking VP Sara’s impeachment has triggered curiosity.  Twelve of them were appointed by former President Rodrigo Duterte, who happens to be the father of the impeached vice-president. Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh, another Duterte appointee, was on leave. Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa, an appointee of the late President Benigno Aquino III, inhibited.

It raised eyebrows that Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, another Aquino appointee, turned out as the ponente or author of the unanimous decision. It’s because, throughout the six years of the Duterte administration, he had written dissenting decisions and openly opposed “authoritarianism” during the Duterte presidency

Way back in May 2017, it was only Leonen who dissented from the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding President Duterte’s 60-day declaration of martial law in Mindanao, arguing that the events in Marawi City constituted terrorism by a criminal bandit group, not rebellion as defined by the constitution.

“The Supreme Court is not perfect,” Leonen himself said in an interview published by the Baguio Inquirer on September 14, 2015.

That statement was in relation to his dissenting opinion on the granting of bail to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile on a non-bailable plunder charge.