THE House of Representatives has filed a motion for reconsideration before the Supreme Court with regard to the latter’s July 25 decision on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte. According to the High Court, the complaint is unconstitutional and hence null and void, even as it emphasized that this ruling does not touch on the guilt or innocence of the impeached official.
The House members say they filed the motion not out of defiance of a co-equal branch of government, but out of a sense of duty.
“It is an exercise in Constitutional stewardship—an affirmation that every branch must act with fidelity to the Charter that gives us all our power. We act not to provoke a clash of institutions, but to prevent the erosion of the people’s right to accountability,” a statement at the House web site read.
The House argues these: first, that the High Court misread the facts. It was only on February 5, when the HOR transmitted the fourth impeachment complaint signed by 215 members, that it archived the first three complaints. Thus, there was only one – not four – valid proceedings initiated; the House respected, not violated, the parameters laid down by the Constitution.
Then, too, the Supreme Court’s statement that Ms. Duterte was denied due process because she was not furnished a copy of the compliant or given the opportunity to respond was, in effect, an imposition of new rules that are not in the Constitution to begin with. Such additional steps, even if reasonable, should apply only after the rules are laid down.
Specifically, the lawmakers are asking the Supreme Court to correct factual misreadings, and reconsider the creation and retroactive application of new procedural burdens. They want the Court to restore to the House its rightful role as the starting point of all impeachment.
We would add that the dangling of impeachment as a tool for political retribution, or as a reaction to an unfavorable act, is a corrosive ill that must be rejected at all costs.
“We seek only the space to perform our Constitutional duty—freely, faithfully, and fully,” the lawmakers said.
The SC’s July 25 decision is immediately executory, but this appeal sets a democratic process in motion. Issues of great national importance, never mind that they are also political, must be argued freely and uninhibitedly before the Court. The decision should be the product of a spirited, civilized debate.
And only when we set facts straight, and hear both sides, can we demonstrate our mutual confidence — even when we disagree.
The issue at hand is not about personalities or political feuding, but about the upholding of processes and institutions that safeguard our democracy and protect our nation from impunity and abuse.
