Camarines Sur 3rd district Rep. Gabriel Bordado said he felt "insulted" and "disappointed" by the Senate's move to remand the articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives.
According to him, the Senate impeachment court could have simply requested the House prosecution panel to make clarifications regarding its articles of impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte, instead of returning the case.
Bordado, one of the signatories to the impeachment complaint, said it seemed that the senators were "trying to supervise" the House.
He maintained that the House of Representatives and the Senate are co-equal branches of the government.
"If they have some doubts at that stage, they could just send some clarificatory communications to the House of representatives, at wag ang i-remand yung case (and not remand the case)," he said in an interview.
"Nakakainsulto yung ginawa nila eh (What they did was insulting)," he added.
Bordado said he did not expect what happened at the Senate Tuesday night, when the senator-judges voted to send the impeachment complaint back to the House.
"After the verbal gymnastics of Senate President Francis Escudero, I was expecting that they would really tackle the impeachment trial," he said.
Voting 18-5-0 (yes-no-abstain), the Senate impeachment court decided to return the articles of impeachment, "but without dismissing or terminating the case".
In doing so, they asked House of Representatives to certify to the non-violation of Article XI, Section 3, paragraph 5 of the Constitution, which provides that "No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year", including the circumstances on the filing of the first three impeachment complaints.
Bordado, who also endorsed the third impeachment complaint against Vice President Duterte, maintained that the House did not violate a constitutional provision that only allows three filing of impeachment complaints within a year.
He said the fourth complaint, which was the one transmitted to the Senate, was only the consolidation of the three previous complaints.
"I was really stunned by what happened last night," Bordado said.
"Kami nag sign doon, kasi we believe na tama ang ipinasok sa senado. First time na ibinalik sa House of Representatives (We signed the last complaint because we believed that it was right. It was the first time that a case was remanded to the House), and I am really very disappointed with the Senate of the Philippines," he said.