AFTER the historic promulgation of the Supreme Court nullifying the articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte as unconstitutional, several former Supreme Court justices raised concerns over the tribunal’s unanimous decision.
For retired chief justice Artemio Panganiban, the House of Representatives (HOR) can still file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the SC decision.
“Note that the decision is not final yet. It is still subject to a motion for reconsideration (or for clarification) by the HOR, if it so wants to file one,” Panganiban said in a statement.
The former chief justice also said that if he were still an incumbent, he would have favored the issuance of a status quo ante order. This would require the parties to maintain the current situation, or for the Senate to stop any trial while the SC is deliberating on the petition.
While the court found the complaint unconstitutional for violating the one-year ban and lacking due process, Panganiban and retired Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna cautioned that the ruling imposed new interpretations that risk undermining the fairness and balance envisioned by the Constitution.
“The new definition, however, would now cover a situation where the complaints were NOT referred to a committee and, after the lapse of the time to do so, archived, and thus, the Supreme Court said, ‘effectively dismissed,’” Azcuna said.
He said the House, relying on the old definition, acted within its rights when it adopted the fourth complaint and transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate. It would not be fair to retroactively apply the court’s new interpretation, Azcuna said.
On the other hand, retired senior associate justice Antonio Carpio has defended the HOR’s’ impeachment of VP Sara, saying the institution “strictly followed” the Constitution in impeaching the Vice President. Carpio argued that the overriding issue was whether the House complied with the 10-session day rule for acting on impeachment complaints.
“The House has manifested, both to the Senate and to the Supreme Court, that the House did not violate this provision of the Constitution,” the retired justice said in a statement, citing the official legal position submitted to the Court. [In Justice Inting’s concurring opinion, none of the assailed impeachment complaints was ever acted upon by the HOR within the said 10-session day.]
But Panganiban, Azcuna and Carpio’s days as magistrates were gone already. They already have their share in our country’s judicial history. Their decisions in the past have either acclaimed, assailed or questions by the legal luminaries before them. And so, their words and pronouncements now are just part of the process.
From a layman’s point of view, will the Supreme Court justices who unanimously vote to void the controversial Articles of Impeachment reconsider their votes just because of the commentaries laid down by retired justices and other parties?
It’s good to note here, that the incumbent SC justices did not simply vote in favor of the decision written by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the designated ponente in this particular case. Associate Justices Ramon Paul L. Hernando, Henri Jean Paul B. Inting, Rodil V. Zalameda, Jhosep Y. Lopez and Justice Samuel H. Gaerlan even have their separate concurring opinion to the decision.
In the concurring opinion of Associate Justice Hernando, he said that the House of the Representatives have actually committed grave abuse of discretion with the latter’s deliberate inaction on the first three complaints to give way to the fourth impeachment complaint.
“The Secretary General, upon the request of certain members of the House, deliberately held hostage the first three complaints in an attempt to circumvent the one-year bar,” Hernando said.
Justice Inting also said that “the House thus acted with grave abuse of discretion in failing to comply with the constitutional deadline for the inclusion of the 2024 Impeachment Complaints in its Order of Business.”
Truly, the end does not justify the means. Notably, the Supreme Court did not say that Vice President Sara Duterte violates no law. The Supreme Court delved only on the process by which the impeachment complaints were acted upon by the House of Representatives. And so, the Court ruled that is simply unconstitutional, and the decision is immediately executory.
To those who are salivating on the opportunity for grandstanding and free media mileage on the aborted impeachment trial, good luck to the next episode of this political drama.|
