VP Duterte can answer impeach raps in PH or via consulate 鈥� reps
Vice President Sara Duterte can either go home or send her reply to the nearest consulate should the Senate ask her to respond to the articles of impeachment, House prosecutors said on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez
MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte can either go home or send her reply to the nearest consulate should the Senate ask her to respond to the articles of impeachment, House of Representatives prosecutors said on Tuesday.
In a press briefing at the Batasang Pambansa complex, Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan and 1-Rider party-list Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez said this could be the possible scenario for Duterte when asked about what would happen if the Senate issued a summons order against her.
The two congressmen, both House prosecutors in the impeachment trial of the vice president, had earlier requested the Senate to order her to answer the impeachment charges.
READ: Solons ask Senate to order VP Duterte to answer the impeachment raps
“We are of the opinion, that […] assuming first the summons would be delivered to the good Vice President.. that would be through personal summons or substitute, the Vice President, if she would still be abroad, can still file her answer and just approach the nearest consulate to have it apostilled,” Gutierrez said.
“She would have to answer it.. it would be a formal filing with the court through the consulate. That’s one opinion that we have, although the ideal [thing] would still be that, personally, she would return to the Philippines to file her answer before the court,” he added.
Libanan — who Gutierrez announced as the team’s lead prosecutor — agreed, saying that Duterte could respond to the order, if issued by the Senate, within 10 days of receipt.
“If the Senate listens to our request, our Vice President will be required to answer the articles of impeachment. This means the summons will be served to her. What does that mean? It means they will be informed formally of the cases, as while she may have heard of it through news and social media, it was unofficial. So the charges that she would face would be mentioned, and she will be asked to respond in a non-extendable period of 10 days,” Libanan said in Filipino.
“So that can be submitted to her office or delivered to her residence. Now, once she receives that, of course they would call her. Her choices, as Congressman Gutierrez mentioned, is that she can respond by going home and answering in writing each allegation, or she can visit our consulate in the Netherlands, where she can execute her answer,” he added.
Duterte is currently in The Hague, Netherlands to assist her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is under the custody of the International Criminal Court. The older Duterte is facing crimes against humanity charges for his administration’s drug war that left thousands dead.
According to Gutierrez, Vice President Duterte’s potential situation can be likened to her family’s ally, former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, who in December 2024 submitted a counter-affidavit for the qualified human trafficking complaints filed against him while he was in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The human trafficking complaints stemmed from Roque’s alleged involvement in Lucky South 99, the Philippine offshore gaming operator hub in Porac, Pampanga, that was raided last June 2024 for being a human trafficking den.
“In the same way, if to make it more common knowledge, ‘yong pagsagot rin po ni attorney Harry Roque, ginawa niya rin po ‘yon abroad po no, so in the same manner it could be done po,” Gutierrez noted.
Earlier, Gutierrez and Libanan submitted a motion asking the Senate to issue a summons against Duterte. According to Libanan, the entire prosecution team signed the motion as early as March 14, but they refrained from submitting it to the Senate as the session was in recess.
They eventually submitted the motion as they took the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on former President Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest as an indication that the chamber is still working despite Congress being on a break.
In the motion, the prosecution panel cited Rule VII of the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials dated March 23, 2011, which states that a writ of summons should be issued against the official impeached by the House.
The prosecution team said the impeachment rules are still applicable since there was a provision stating that it will be in force until it is amended or repealed.
Duterte was impeached by the House last February 5, after 215 lawmakers filed and verified a fourth impeachment complaint, hinged on several issues like the alleged confidential fund misuse, threats to ranking officials including President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and conduct unbecoming of a Vice President.
The articles of impeachment were immediately transmitted to the Senate, as the 1987 Constitution requires a trial to start forthwith if at least one-third of all House members — in this case, 102 out of 306 — have signed and endorsed the petition.
READ: House impeaches VP Sara Duterte, fast-tracking transmittal to Senate
However, the trial has yet to start as the articles of impeachment were not forwarded to the Senate plenary before the session ended on February 5 — which means that Congress would have to reconvene first after the election season, or through a special session to discuss the matter.
Senate President Francis Escudero has said that the trial would start by July 30 — with the new set of lawmakers after the 2025 midterm elections sitting as senator-judges.
Several members of the prosecution team previously said that while they respect the Senate’s stand on the matter, they believe that the impeachment trial should start at the soonest possible time to avoid dangers, like possible tampering of evidence and threatening of witnesses.
