The Philippine Senate voted Tuesday to send the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte back to the House of Representatives, a decision one senator called a “functional dismissal”.
The House impeached Duterte in early February on charges of graft, corruption and an alleged assassination plot against one-time ally and former running mate President Ferdinand Marcos.
A conviction, which requires the support of two-thirds of the Senate’s 24 members, would mean her removal as vice president and a permanent ban from public office.
Tuesday’s 18-5 decision came just hours after senators had taken their oaths as jurors, and followed days of wrangling that had raised fears the trial process was headed for derailment.
Duterte is widely expected to run for president in 2028 if she survives impeachment, a possibility with deep implications for the political futures of the senators tasked with deciding her fate.
Senator Ronald dela Rosa, former national police chief and enforcer of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, on Tuesday introduced a motion to dismiss the impeachment case against the former leader’s daughter.
Dela Rosa argued that earlier complaints filed against Duterte in the House, which did not make it past the committee level, had constituted multiple impeachment proceedings within a year, something banned under the Philippine constitution.
The motion was later amended in favour of sending the case back to the House, which must now certify that it did not violate the constitution and that it remains willing to prosecute the case when its new members take their seats on June 30.
Senator Risa Hontiveros, who opposed the motion, warned that returning the case to the lower body was an abrogation of responsibility that would see it ultimately disappear.
“Remanding is a functional dismissal,” she said, later adding the impeachment complaint was “being dismantled brick by brick”.
Senate President Francis Escudero, however, insisted there was no such motive behind the body’s decision.
“The intention is to give the prosecutors an opportunity to answer certain questions in a manner that does not waste the time of the court,” he said.
Following the vote, Escudero issued a summons for the vice president, who will have 10 days from its receipt to answer the impeachment charges.
‘Cowards’
Tuesday’s convening of the impeachment court had already been rescheduled once, with some lawmakers publicly expressing fears the Senate might choose to shelve the trial entirely.
Following the vote, the Akbayan party, which had endorsed the impeachment complaint, called the senators “cowards”.
“After dribbling for so long, now they’re going to pass (the ball). They’re not only cowards; they are traitors to their sworn duty,” they said on their Facebook page.
Michael Tiu, assistant professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law, told AFP the decision to remand had “no constitutional or legal basis”.
“The power of the Senate is to try and decide. It cannot second guess a co-equal body’s exercise of its exclusive power to initiate an impeachment proceeding,” he said.
A slate of candidates loyal to Duterte outperformed expectations in May’s mid-term elections, winning five of the 12 open seats and upping her chances for acquittal.
On Monday, Duterte’s defence team said in a statement they were “ready to confront the charges and expose the baselessness of the accusations against the Vice President”.
Duterte swept to power in 2022 in an alliance with Marcos that began crumbling almost immediately.
The feud exploded into open warfare this year with her impeachment and the subsequent arrest and transfer of her father to face charges at the International Criminal Court at the Hague tied to his deadly drug crackdown.
Marcos has publicly stated that he is against the impeachment while maintaining he is powerless to intervene.
