Tingog Party-list Rep .Jude Acidre has expressed concerns over the possibility of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment case being drowned in technicalities even as an immediate Senate impeachment trial appears to be unlikely.

“Sana hindi malunod sa technicality ang ating kagustuhang mabigyan linaw ang pananagutan sa Pangalawang Pangulo. Kasi ang isa lang naman ang pamamaraan para matugunan natin ang panawagan for accountability, magkaroon ng trial,” Acidre said in a press conference Wednesday, July 2.

(I hope that our desire to clarify the Vice President’s accountability doesn’t get drowned in technicalities. After all, there’s only one way to truly respond to the call for accountability, and that’s to proceed with a trial.)

He made these remarks amid procedural requirements raised by the Senate impeachment court, particularly the need for a House certification that it will pursue Vice President Duterte's impeachment in the 20th Congress.

It can be recalled that the House of Representatives transmitted the impeachment complaint to the Senate way back on Feb. 5, during the tail end of the previous 19th Congress.

There's even a debate on whether or not the impeachment case can cross over at all to the next Congress, where its two chambers (House and Senate) will have different compositions.

Acidre is of the opinion that all this technical brouhaha could be properly addressed in the trial proper between the House prosecutors and the senator-judges.

''Alam natin kung meron mang pananagutan, kung meron mang perspektibo o meron mang concern ang Senado (We know that if there's accountability, or if there's a perspective or concern from the Senate), it could have been raised better in the course of the trial…that would have afforded also the House to present,” he said.

No less than the 1987 Constitution mandates the immediate holding of an impeachment trial once the articles of impeachment reaches the Senate. Since Feb. 5, the Senate has managed to convene as an impeachment court, but no trial has taken place.

Instead, the senator-judges ended up remanding the impeachment articles to the House--an action that triggered its own debate as to whether or not it was constitutional.

Acidre says that the real casualty in the delays and procedural wrangling are the Filipinos, who are waiting for clarity on the Vice President’s alleged misuse of confidential funds and threats to top government leaders.

“Yung taumbayan ang nadedehado dito sa usaping ito. Dapat alam na ng taumbayan ito eh. Nagproceed na sana tayo dun sa mga katanungan…kung ano katotohanan tungkol sa paggamit ng confidential funds at iba pang paratang sa articles of impeachment,” he said.

(It’s the people who are getting the short end of the stick in this issue. The public should already be aware of this. We should have moved forward to the questions by now…about the truth behind the use of confidential funds and the other allegations in the articles of impeachment.)