WITH the first impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte filed by civil society organizations before the House of Representatives on Dec. 2, and a second one filed by the Makabayan bloc only days later, the stage is now set for the possibility of the second highest elective official in the country to be ousted from office.
This is a first in the nation’s political history.
The impeachment complaints against the sitting vice president are in accord with Article 11 of the 1987 Constitution that says the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court, members of the Constitutional Commissions and the Ombudsman may be removed from office for culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, and betrayal of public trust.
The 50-page impeachment complaint filed by religious leaders, sectoral representatives and families of drug war victims, endorsed by the Akbayan party-list representative, cites all the reasons for impeachment enumerated in the fundamental law, except for treason, and contains a total of 24 articles.
The second impeachment complaint drafted by the Makabayan bloc and other progressive groups focuses on a single issue—betrayal of public trust by the VP, specifically her alleged misuse of confidential funds.
The next step is for the House Committee on Justice to determine whether the impeachment complaints are sufficient in form and substance. If it does so, then these will be forwarded to the Senate for trial.
The filing of the impeachment complaints against Sara Duterte immediately follows President Marcos Jr.’s statement that he would prefer not to have the vice president impeached as this would take up too much time and derail efforts by the legislature and the government as a whole to focus on addressing economic issues.
But the vice president may have had it coming ever since the House committee on good government and public accountability unearthed various issues at the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.
Last month, the House panel discovered that the special disbursing officers of OVP and DepEd had left the disbursement of confidential funds to her security officers, which is tantamount to technical malversation.
Prior to this, legislators also found possible irregularities in the acknowledgement receipts for OVP and DepEd’s confidential fund expenses.
But the calls for Duterte’s impeachment mounted after her recent online press conference where she said she has contracted someone to kill the President, First Lady and House Speaker if she is targeted for assassination.
If the House plenary endorses the impeachment complaints against Sara Duterte, then it becomes a numbers game in the Senate where it would take three-fourths of 23 sitting senators or 16 of them to convict her and remove her from the vice presidency, which would prevent her from getting elected or appointed to any public office in the future.
Which way will it go? Well, no one can tell at this point.
We’ll have to wait and see whether the House does its part in record time and the senators vote according to the available evidence, not on political grounds.
Not to forget, there could even be more impeachment complaints filed against the VP in the days ahead.
