CEBU CITY – A lawyer expressed confidence that the third impeachment complaint filed against Vice President Sara Duterte will prosper.
VICE President Sara Duterte (FB)
Cebu-based lawyer Armando Virgil Ligutan said they invoked grounds for impeachment in the complaint.
“The impeachment complaint that we filed was based on the result of committee hearings,” Ligutan said in an interview here on Saturday, Dec. 21.
Ligutan said a group of priests and lawyers was behind the third impeachment complaint filed on Thursday, Dec. 19, before the Secretary General of the House of Representatives in Quezon City.
Complainants accused Duterte of culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust.
Complainants were Reverend Fr. Antonio Labiao Jr.; Rev. Fr. Joel Saballa; Rev. Fr. Rico P. Ponce; Rev. Fr. Dionisio V. Ramos; Rev. Fr. Esmeraldo A. Reforeal; Rev. Fr. Daniel Franklin Pilario; Simon Serrano (Stop Corruption Philippines founder); Wilfredo G. Villanueva (Stand Up for God Rosary Group lead founder); Pinky L. Tam, Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao represented by vice chairman Joel B. Mahinay, Maria Loreto A. Lopez, and Atty. Shanelle Aubrey Gianina A. Gomez.
Ligutan said that they are confident that the House of Representatives will act on the complaint once sessions resume.
“The House is already on a break for Christmas but we are confident that they will act on the complaint once they resume session on Jan. 13 next year,” Ligutan said.
Failing to act on the complaint after the year ends will not violate the one-year bar rule of impeachment, Ligutan said.
The rule states that “no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”
“The one-year period, it’s not about the calendar year but it is when the impeachment proceeding commenced or when the House acted on the complaint,” said Ligutan.