Several legal and academic luminaries expressed agreement yesterday that Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial should not be delayed any further, stating that the phrase “trial shall proceed forthwith” should not be too difficult for Senators to comprehend.
In a television interview, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, Dean of the Graduate School of Law at San Beda University, pointed out, “It is clear in the Constitution that the moment the articles of impeachment are filed by at least 1/3 of the lower house, trial shall proceed forthwith.”
“There was no reason to postpone the trial. I can’t understand why Senator Chiz Escudero refuses to get the trial at the Senate started,” he said in a mixture of Filipino and English.
Similarly, faculty members of De La Salle University’s Department of Political Science and Development Studies said that further delaying the impeachment “erodes public trust” and mocks the “mechanisms of accountability” in the Constitution.
In a statement, they expressed dismay at what they called “deliberate foot-dragging” in convening the Senate as an impeachment court.
“We express our deep disgust and grave concern over the protracted delay in convening the Senate as an Impeachment Court to try the case against Vice President Sara Duterte,” they added.
They also said the delay “reflects an active political maneuvering” that undermines a mechanism to hold top government officials accountable.
For its part, the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) reminded Senators that the Constitution imposes on them a solemn, non-discretionary duty.
“On February 5, 2025, the 19th Congress received the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte. From that moment, the Senate had no choice but to act. And yet, invoking the midterm elections as a convenient excuse, it failed to convene as an impeachment court,” the group said in a Friday statement.
Likewise, lawyers Burt Estrada, Paolo Tamase, and Felix Desiderio, Jr., also said the Senate must begin the trial.
Estrada, former national president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), admitted there is a delay contrary to the 1987 Constitution, such that the “trial should already proceed.”
He believes the impeachment proceedings can carry over from the 19th Congress to the 20th Congress, as it is a continuing body, especially when it comes to non-legislative functions.
According to the lawyer, this issue can be avoided if the senators amend their rules to accommodate a speedy and continuous daily trial to have the trial end before June 30.
“I also subscribe to the position that as a court, like the judicial courts, the impeachment court is the same court despite the change in the composition of the justices or the presiding judge,” Estrada said.
He noted that the Supreme Court (SC) can settle the legal questions “if there is grave abuse of discretion in accordance with the Court’s expanded power of judicial review.”
“I’m not prepared to say if it constitutes grave abuse, but it certainly appears that they are abusing their discretion and using technicalities to defeat the ultimate purpose of protecting the people by ferreting out the truth about impeachable offenses committed by our highest public servants,” Estrada said.
Tamase, who teaches constitutional law, thinks there is a delay that violates the constitutional directive to “forthwith proceed.”
As an accountability mechanism for the highest officials means that impeachment is of a special priority, he explained that “there seems to be no reason for the Senate not to begin proceedings on June 2.”
According to him, the impeachment trial of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona opened two days after the Articles of Impeachment were transmitted.
