DAVAO CITY, Philippines – It is inevitable that Vice President Sara Duterte faces an impeachment complaint. The handwriting was on the wall, or rather on the acknowledgment receipts on her confidential funds disbursement which was found to be fraudulent with non-existent people and faked signatures.
This followed months of committee hearings in the House where the irregularities in spending taxpayers’ money were discovered, and the display of defiance from Duterte against House members. It was a question of time, and who would lead the call for impeachment.
House members repeatedly said they have not considered impeaching Duterte, as the committee hearings were intended to deliberate on how to handle confidential funds in the future, like taking off these funds from the vice president and other departments. But impeachment complaints were filed in the first week of December.
Here are things to know about the impeachment complaints filed against the vice president.
Who can be impeached?
The Philippine Constitution states the following could be impeached: the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court, members of the Constitutional Commission, and the Ombudsman.
Who filed the impeachment against VP Sara?
The first impeachment case was filed on December 2 by 17 individuals coming from civil society groups and former government officials and was endorsed by the Akbayan Party-list. Impeachments can be filed by citizens at the House of Representatives, and have to be endorsed by a member of the House.
The complainants on the first impeachment are former presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles; Catholic priests Flaviano Villanueva and Robert Reyes, nuns. Susan Santos Esmile and Mary Grace de Guzman; political science lecturer Francis Joseph Aquino Dee; Gary Alejano, Maria Yvonne Cristina Jereza, and Eugene Louie Gonzalez, the Magdalo group led by former Sen. Sonny Trillanes; Alice Murphy of the Urban Poor Associates; Sylvia Estrada Claudio, former dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Social Work and Community Development; singer Leah Navarro; and Randy Francisco delos Santos, uncle of drug war casualty Kian delos Santos.
The second impeachment case filed on December 4 was endorsed by the Makabayan coalition, with 75 complainants coming from progressive organizations, including former legislators Teddy Casiño, Liza Maza, and Neri Colmenares.
Why is the vice president being impeached?
The Makabayan coalition’s complaint raised one reason for VP Sara’s impeachment: betrayal of public trust. This is one of six offenses that are grounds for impeachment. Betrayal of public trust is a broad term that defines actions that damage the integrity of public office.
The group cited three issues on the betrayal of public trust. First is the vice president’s “gross abuse of discretionary powers over P612.5 million in supposed confidential funds from December 2022 until third quarter of 2023.” This included the P125 million confidential funds that were discovered to have been spent in just 11 days in December 2022.
Second issue was the irregularities in the confidential funds spent in 2023 under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) worth P375 million and P112.5 million in the Department of Education which Duterte served as secretary until her resignation in October.
The third ground is Duterte’s “gross disregard of transparency and accountability, making a mockery of the audit process” where her staff members made dubious reports that included fabricated liquidation reports and falsified documents, such as signatures of people who are non-existent.
The other impeachment complaint raised various grounds against Duterte, including graft and corruption, bribery, and illegal wealth accumulation which was probably based on the admission of former staff members from DepEd who claimed to have received envelopes with money, betrayal of public trust which included her leave to Germany amidst supertyphoon Carina hitting the country.
How will the impeachment process go about?
An impeachment filed in the House of Representatives will be passed to the House Committee on Justice to assess the merits of the complaints. The committee must submit a report and resolution to the House within 60 session days. The House needs to vote on this within 10 days of receiving the report and resolution.
After which, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to adopt the articles of impeachment. It needs one-third of all members of the House to vote in favor of impeachment.
Once passed, the impeachment will be transferred to the Senate, which will convene as judges for the Senate trial on impeachment. A two-thirds majority or 16 votes is needed to convict and remove the Vice President from office.
If convicted, the Vice President will be removed from office and is disqualified from holding any position in government. The Vice President may still be prosecuted in courts for violation of the law.
Is there enough time to push the impeachment?
With the House scheduled to pause from December 21 to January 12 for the Christmas holidays, the Makabayan bloc is pushing for the signatories of one-third of the 300 House members to sign the impeachment resolution. This is a fast-track way that allows the impeachment complaint to be approved by the House which does not require proceedings at the House Committee on Justice.
Another matter is Congress will have an extended break from February 8 to June 1 to give way to the midterm elections wherein members of Congress will seek reelection.
It is a matter of squeezing what could be done before Christmas, which the Makabayan bloc hopes to achieve before Congress takes a break.
Who succeeds Duterte if she is impeached?
Speculations raised by Duterte supporters allege that House Speaker Martin Romualdez will most likely become the next vice president if Duterte gets impeached. But he is not the only choice.
The Constitution in Article VII said in case the OVP is vacant, the President shall nominate a member of the Senate or the House to assume office, and must receive confirmation from both the House and the Senate voting separately.
This case happened in 2001 when Vice Presidency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency after Joseph Estrada vacated the office after People Power 2. Macapagal-Arroyo nominated Senator Teofisto Guingona to assume the vacated position of vice presidency.
Aside from Romualdez, other possible nominees include Senate President Francis Escudero, and possibly other senior members of the Senate and the House.
Isn’t the impeachment politically motivated?
An impeachment is political, in that members of the House and the Senate support or reject the impeachment based on loyalty or alliances. This happened during the Macapagal-Arroyo period, where she survived four impeachment attempts from 2005 to 2008 on allegations of election fraud to corruption.
In VP Sara’s case, the politics here is due to her fallout with her former Uniteam tandem President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. And it all started with the expose on the confidential funds spearheaded by the Makabayan bloc during the budget deliberations in 2023.
Even if Duterte blames Marcos and the First Lady for allegedly giving her the confidential funds, the issue centers on Sara Duterte’s culpability and conduct as vice president.
She has sworn to uphold the Constitution and part of that duty is to hold herself accountable as the second highest elected official.
Aside from the irregularities on the confidential funds, she is also questioned for how the budget in the education department wasn’t fully utilized.
The impeachment, pushed mainly by civil society and progressive groups, indicates that the call for accountability comes from citizens, who are burdened by socio-economic problems, and the glaring misuse of their taxes under the OVP betrays their trust. That trust includes the 32 million people who voted for her in 2022.
Sara Duterte has said that it may be her fate if she gets impeached from this series of events. That may be the case, as the public wants to restore a sense of decency and justice from this present crisis in governance. (davaotoday.com)
philippines, sara duterte
