MANILA — The Supreme Court this week affirmed its July 2025 ruling that the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte were unconstitutional.
It said a majority of the House could not have endorsed the impeachment complaint it sent to the Senate in February 2025 because proceedings had already been initiated by the filing of three other complaints in December 2024.
Duterte welcomed the ruling against what she said was the House of Representatives' "abuse of the impeachment process" against her.
She added that her lawyers are ready for any new attempts to impeach her, a move that she has maintained is more focused in the 2028 elections than on accountability.
The court said that even though those complaints had not been referred to the House Justice Committee, impeachment is deemed initiated if a verified and endorsed complaint is "not placed in the Order of Business of the House of Representatives within 10 session days, or referred to the Committee on Justice after it has been put in the Order of Business within three session days."
The panel, once the complaints were referred to it, would have held hearings to determine if they followed format and standards and if they made proper allegations of impeachable offenses.
The House could, and did, bypass that step by endorsing a fourth complaint and transmitting that as the Articles of Impeachment against Duterte.
In a press statement on the decision, the SC Public Information Office said the SC recognizes the third mode of initiating impeachment — endorsement by at least a third of the House — as "a streamlined initiation when a sufficient level of consensus already exists."
The court also emphasized due process, however, including providing all House members "full copies of the complaint and its accompanying evidence" prior to the vote to transmit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate for trial.
Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Lusitro, chair of the justice committee, said the House will need to revise its rules on impeachment to follow the requirements set by the Supreme Court.
"It is not the same anymore," she said Friday. She said the "expresslane" option of sending a complaint straight to the Senate will be affected but could not yet say how, adding she still needs to study the full decision.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III was the first to object to the ruling, calling it judicial overreach and a "clear encroachment on the power of the legislative branch" that would make impeaching an official "an impossible dream".
He has since said he is willing to support charter change to clarify impeachment procedure that would otherwise take years of waiting for sitting justices to retire from the Supreme Court to correct.
Mamamayang Liberal Party-List Rep. Leila De Lima, who stood as spokesperson for filers of the first impeachment complaints against Duterte in December 2024 , said the Supreme Court engaged in legislation in its decision.
She said the court "redefined" initiation, "has rewritten the operating manual for impeachment initiation [and] has supplied new rules, new timelines, and new consequences that are nowhere found in the text."
San Juan City Rep. Ysabel Zamora, who would have been among the prosecutors had the impeachment trial pushed through, said the Supreme Court had even redefined a session day as a calendar day.
At the House, a session day ends when the session is adjourned. Session days can cross over to the next calendar day, and that, she said, “has long been the definition of a session day."
House members stressed that they respect the SC's ruling, but Akbayan Party-List Rep. Percival Cendaña, who endorsed one of the complaints against Duterte, said the Supreme Court "encroached" into a political process that should have been left in the realm of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“Kakaunti na nga lang ‘yung mekanismo para panagutin ang mga nang-abuso sa kapangyarihan, tapos pahihinain pa natin,” he also said.
(We already have few mechanisms to hold abuse of power accountable and we're weakening it.)
While declining comment on the legal aspects of the decision, Assistant Professor Anthony Lawrence Borja of the Political Science department at De La Salle University said that the Supreme Court "appears to have bared its fangs with that decision."
He said that, at least in the debate on Duterte's impeachment, "the SC rendered itself an active political actor and will be more subjected to the twists and turns of partisan politics" because of it.
Apart from Sotto's comment on charter change, Bicol Saro Party-List Rep. Terry Ridon — a lawyer and a member of the House Justice Committee — pointed out Sunday that Supreme Court justices are impeachable officials too.
He added that Congress still has oversight on the judiciary's spending.
"Even if they actually enjoy judicial autonomy, I think Congress continues to possess powers to basically check particular expenditures of the judiciary, particularly their use of the Judicial Development Fund," he said.
The smallest and "weakest" of the co-equal branches of government, the judiciary is not immune from politics or from impeachment.
Two of its chief justices, Renato Corona and Maria Lourdes Sereno, were subjects of impeachment complaints.
Corona was removed from office in 2012 by conviction at the Senate and Sereno was deemed in 2018 to never have been appointed chief justice because of a separate quo warranto petition.
ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. Antonio Tinio meanwhile said that despite the SC decision, he and members of the Makabayan bloc, are ready to endorse a fresh impeachment complaint expected this month.
“Hindi nababago ‘yung pangangailangan na singilin si Vice President Sara Duterte sa paggamit ng confidential funds nang ‘di alinsunod at labag sa mga batas at sa guidelines... At dapat managot dito. So, tuloy pa rin ang plano na i-file muli ‘yung complaints as soon as pwede na,” Tinio said.
(The need to hold Vice President Sara Duterte accountable for misusing confidential funds has not changed... and she should be held accountable. So the plan to file complaints as soon as it can be done is still on)
