The Supreme Court (SC) is set to take up during its full court session on Tuesday, Feb. 18, the petition seeking to compel the Senate to start immediately the trial of the verified impeachment complaints filed by the House of Representatives against Vice President Sara Duterte.

A raffle of the petition filed by lawyer Catalino Aldea Generillo Jr. with all the senators led by Senate President Francis G. Escudero as respondents is set today, Feb. 17, to determine who is the justice-in-charge of the case.

Thereafter, the petition will be tackled in Tuesday’s full court session.

Legal quarters said the SC is not expected to rule tomorrow on Generillo’s petition.  They said the SC may require the Senate to comment on the petition.

Also to be tackled during the full court session is the petition to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and automated election system provider Miru Systems to disclose documents related to the 2025 midterm polls.

The petitioners are members of the Right to Know, Right Now Coalition (R2KRN), the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), the Philippine Press Institute, journalists, and academics.

In filing his mandamus petition, Generillo cited the provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

A mandamus is a special civil action sought by a party “against a tribunal, corporation, board, officer or person unlawfully neglecting the performance of an act which the law specifically requires as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station.”

The impeachment complaints against Duterte were “based on the grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.”

In his petition, Generillo told the SC that the Senate has “the inescapable constitutional duty to immediately constitute itself into an impeachment court” and start the impeachment trial of Duterte.

He was referring to Section 3(4) of Article XI of the Constitution which states: “In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.”

Among the meanings of “forthwith” in Oxford Dictionary are “immediately,” “at once,” “instantly,” “directly,” “right away,” “straight away,” “now,” “instantaneously,” and “without delay,” Generillo said.

Thus, he stressed that the use of the word “forthwith” in the Constitutional provision “must be taken, at the least, with some urgency.”

In the case of the verified impeachment complaints against Duterte, Generillo said: “The honorable members of the Senate, individually or collectively, are not suffering from any kind of disability, physical or mental, that prevents them from constituting themselves into an impeachment court and forthwith conduct public trial to determine whether the Vice President is guilty or not.”

He pointed out: “In the final analysis, the Constitution does not allow the Senate to procrastinate during the period it is on recess whether it shall constitute itself into an impeachment court and try the Vice President.”

The verified complaints for impeachment was turned over to the Senate by the House of Representatives shortly before the former adjourned session last Feb. 5. 

Senate President Escudero had said the Senate cannot legally start the impeachment trial while Congress is on recess.

Escudero had also said that the impeachment case was not referred to the plenary before session adjourned, and thus there was no basis for the Senate to convene as an impeachment court.

He declared that when Senate sessions resume in June, the senators would review and update the impeachment rules.  Thereafter, the pre-trial would start, he said.