The House impeachment prosecutors will take their case all the way to the Supreme Court should the Senate make good its threat to dismiss the case against Vice-president Sara Duterte-Carpio instead of trying her.
This, after Senate President Chiz Escudero said last week that dismissing the case was one of the options of the Senate sitting as impeachment court against the VP.
House prosecution team spokesperson Antonio Bucoy said they would have to take that step but hoped “it would never have to come to that point.”
Sen. Koko Pimentel, who has served his final term in the upper chamber at the end of the 19th Congress and will not serve as judge in the 20th Congress which starts this month, said he was certain that the SC will side with the House on the matter if it is elevated to the high tribunal.
Pimentel is a bar topnotcher and former Senate president, who was the minority leader.
Incoming returnee to the Senate, Ping Lacson, said the senators who had been calling for the scrapping of the case were acting in an “inappropriate” manner as it was their duty to try the case and not act as defense lawyers for the respondent.
His fellow senators should “behave and speak like judges,” he said, adding that senators should not act as if they were “meddling with the presentation of evidence.”
Senators Imee Marcos and Bato dela Rosa had been the most vocal in calling for the Senate not to proceed with the impeachment trial of the Vice-president. They have been supported by Senators Robin Padilla and Bong Go.
House prosecutors had called them out for prejudging the case, with some even calling for them to inhibit themselves from serving as judges.
But it has been the statements of Senate President Escudero which the House prosecutors have found wanting, as he will be presiding over the trial.
Escudero has been sending mixed signals on the Senate’s role in the trial.
Weeks ago, he drew the ire of the House prosecutors when Escudero agreed to remand the case back to the House, asking that they guarantee that the impeachment case was filed following the proper legal procedures.
Escudero also opined that the Senate was in a superior position over the House where the trial was concerned.
More recently, however, he has stated that as far as he was concerned, the trial would proceed and that calls for its scrapping would not prosper.
Another returnee to the Senate, Tito Sotto, has commented on the statements of Escudero, whom he said appeared not to know the intricacies of the law.
While Escudero is a lawyer, Sotto is not. Sotto, however, is a previous Senate president who says he learned much from the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, especially where impeachment trials are concerned.
Sotto expressed an interest in seeking again the Senate presidency for the 20th Congress. He said he would first determine if he had the votes before announcing his possible bid
Sen. Imee Marcos has also expressed interest in seeking the Senate presidency. Although she took up law at UP, Marcos never earned a law degree.
Whoever holds the Senate presidency has a huge say on how the trial of VP Duterte-Carpio will proceed, as the Senate president will serve as presiding judge.
Duterte-Carpio needs a two-thirds vote of the 24-member Senate to be removed from her post. This means she only needs nine senator-judges voting in her favor to be acquitted.
Her impeachment trial is set to begin in the last week of July when the 19th Congress adjourns and the 20th Congress takes over.
