Senate Minority Leader Senator Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson are ready to lead the motion to revive from the archives the impeachment case of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio if the Supreme Court releases its decision reversing its earlier ruling on the case.
“While the archiving, definitely it’s not dismissal… we need to file a motion on the floor to pull out the one that was archived because it is voted,” Lacson said during a radio interview with DWIZ.
Lacson also sees that some of his colleagues will still block his plans.
“I just feel like it’s likely that the one who doesn’t pull it out, doesn’t revive it, will win again. Based on what I’ve seen from my colleagues’ rather firm stance, the majority of them really don’t want the trial to proceed,” he said.
The senator still hopes that the final ruling of the Supreme Court will be respected.
“If their vote is still the same, when we explain our votes, I will take it back to them, I will quote everything they said in their explanation of votes, which is almost everything they said, that we should respect, let’s honor the ruling of the Supreme Court,” Lacson said.
Meanwhile, Senator Rodante Marcoleta sees the said voting on the impeachment case as unnecessary.
“For me, there is no more voting. Because they will say that there will be more voting if it is revived. No more. The Supreme Court said it is alive. Or, did we follow because it is dead? We will follow because it is alive. We’ll discuss it now,” he said.
The House prosecution team and a political analyst clarified that even if the case is a political process, the accountability of a government official is paramount.
“The motivation for this impeachment is not against [Vice President] Sara, it is against corruption… she is being impeached because of accountability,” Atty. Antonio Bucoy said in a news forum.
“The issue is the crime against the people, she will be held accountable… we haven’t talked about 2028 yet… politics is irrelevant here,” he added.
“I don’t think it can be said that this is just political because these expenses that they didn’t explain, this is the crux of this impeachment,” Prof.
Jason Aguirre, Assistant Professor from Ateneo de Manila University, said in a televised interview with DZMM when asked regarding his views on the impeachment case of the Vice President.
“Please don’t let this turn into mudslinging, that’s another matter, if the exchange itself is just a sham… we won’t get anywhere,” he added.
The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte is on a “wait and see” tactic on the final ruling of the Supreme Court on the impeachment case.
“We are not yet in accountability, we are only in the process,” Atty. Michael Poa, the spokesperson for the impeachment defense team of the Vice President, said.
Moreover, the defense team is expected to submit their reply on the motion for reconsideration to the Supreme Court on Friday.
