SC junks Duterte’s impeachment proceedings, Senate trial to continue

The Supreme Court (SC) has unanimously junked two petitions, including one filed by Vice President Sara Duterte herself, that questioned the validity of her impeachment proceedings. The petitions challenged the hearings on impeachment complaints conducted by the House Committee on Justice, which could have potentially impacted the ongoing trial in the Senate. The SC dismissed the consolidated petitions, identified as GR No. E-05546 (filed by lawyer Israelito Torreon, et al.) and GR No. E-05667 (filed by Duterte), on the grounds that they were moot. This determination was made because the House of Representatives had already approved and transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate. The articles of impeachment, which reportedly include allegations of misuse of confidential funds and threats directed at President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his family, are now the subject of the impeachment trial in the Senate. Under the Philippine Constitution, the House of Representatives holds the mandate to assess whether an impeachment complaint against an impeachable official is substantial. The House Committee on Justice is tasked with conducting hearings, after which the House plenary can decide whether to approve the articles of impeachment. In May, a total of 257 lawmakers voted to approve these articles, leading to Duterte's second impeachment. Should the Vice President be convicted by the Senate, she would be removed from her position and permanently barred from holding public office, effectively preventing her from contesting the presidency in 2028. The SC, in its briefer, explained that the House's transmittal of the articles signified the conclusion of the lower chamber's involvement in the impeachment process and the initiation of the impeachment case. The High Court stated that the actions Duterte and Torreon sought to halt had already been completed. "The SC further held that the impeachment process had already moved to the Senate, which had convened as an impeachment court and had begun proceedings…. Any ruling on the validity of the actions taken by the House and its Committee on Justice would no longer affect the controversy," the High Court stated. This ruling contrasts with a previous SC decision in 2025 that declared impeachment proceedings against Duterte unconstitutional, citing violations of due process and the one-year bar rule, which prohibits more than one impeachment proceeding against an official within a year. That earlier ruling halted the impeachment trial before it could fully commence. For the current 2026 impeachment proceedings, Duterte had argued before the SC that the impeachment complaints violated the one-year bar rule and that their referral was invalid. She also questioned the public hearing conducted by the committee on justice, which evaluated the evidence and witnesses against her. Some described the committee hearings as a "mini-trial," while Duterte referred to them as a "fishing expedition" – a term used to describe using one legal proceeding to investigate another offense. The House prosecution, represented by prosecutor Terry Ridon, viewed the latest SC ruling as settling the debate on the "mini-trial" and "fishing expedition" claims. Ridon expressed confidence that the truth would prevail in the Senate Impeachment Court. The Senate impeachment court, through its spokesperson Reginald Tongol, stated that the SC ruling confirmed the completion of the House's role in initiating impeachment. Tongol affirmed that the Senate, as the impeachment court, possesses exclusive jurisdiction over the impeachment trial, as stipulated in Article XI, Section 3(6) of the 1987 Constitution. "Like what’s stated in the Supreme Court resolution, the transmittal of the articles of impeachment activated the Senate’s power to convene into an impeachment court. The jurisdiction of the Impeachment Court is now absolute," Tongol said. He further explained that the Senate was not a party to the SC petitions and operates "entirely distinct" from the House prosecutors. The spokesperson added that the impeachment court begins with a "blank slate" in the adjudicatory phase, insulated from the procedural history, evidentiary gathering, and internal findings of the House prior to the transmittal of the articles. "The Impeachment Court does not inherit their legal disputes, nor will the Court litigate them in the adjudicatory phase of the process." This exclusive jurisdiction of the Senate could have been tested if the SC had ruled differently. In the 2025 instance, when the SC declared the impeachment unconstitutional, the Senate archived the articles. However, that was before a full-blown trial had commenced. Information source: Rappler Philippines