Hontiveros warns of neglect if Senate delays Sara Duterte impeachment
Senator Risa Hontiveros.黑料社 / NOY MORCOSO
MANILA, Philippines — It would be a grave neglect of duty should concurrent senators fail to dwell on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte before the chamber transition into 20th Congress.
This was according to Deputy Minority Leader Sen. Risa Hontiveros who emphasized that there’s no reason for the Senate leadership to delay the proceedings.
“It would be a bad precedent if we at the Senate let this pass — not only the chance but also the responsibility to respond to an impeachment complaint seeking accountability for spending the people’s money,” Hontiveros said in Filipino in the “Kapihan sa Senado” forum on Wednesday.
Later in the forum, the opposition senator said failure to tackle such a complaint would mean that they have abandoned their duties.
Article continues after this advertisement“For me, it would be a great neglect of duty for us [senators] in the 19th Congress [if we fail] to do our job in this impeachment complaint. It’s true that our time won’t be wasted because we will be able to do the preliminaries, but we won’t be able to enforce the rules because it will be the 20th Congress that will implement it,” Hontiveros said.
Article continues after this advertisement“If we leave it to the 20th Congress, we senators in the 19th Congress would have reneged on our responsibility to do just that now,” she added.
But Senate President Francis Escudero already made clear that the proper impeachment trial against Duterte would commence after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address in July.
For Hontiveros, though, there’s no longer a need for the chamber to wait months just for them to do their jobs.
“I hope there’s no longer a need for additional cases just for us to do our responsibility in a more timely action. There are still four months from now to June. There’s no reason we should wait four months or even one more month; we can start taking care of our responsibilities now,” she said.
READ: Marcos: Will call special session if asked by Senate
Like Hontiveros, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III previously explained that the Senate could make a decision to convene as an impeachment court and “come up with its own court calendar separate from its legislative calendar.”
He said the chamber could theoretically “begin the preliminary preparations in March and defer the presentation of witnesses until after the upcoming election.”
But he also argued that such a delay would still run counter to the framers’ original intent and the spirit of the Constitution that “trial by the Senate shall forthwith start.”
