Minority solons dismayed by SC's tweaking of impeachment rules
Published Jan 30, 2026 02:36 pm
At A Glance
- House minority bloc members have expressed disappointment and concern over the what they described as the Supreme Court's (SC) insertion of new doctrine or rules in the impeachment process.
The House of Representatives (Ellson Quismorio/ MANILA BULLETIN)
House minority bloc members have expressed disappointment and concern over the what they described as the Supreme Court's (SC) insertion of new doctrine or rules in the impeachment process.
This, after ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio and Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima was able to review on Friday, Jan. 30 the SC's junking of the House of Representatives' motion for reconsideration (MR) on the high court's earlier declaration of the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte as unconstitutional.
"It seems the SC actually backed off from the due process requirements (respondent's right to notice and reply, etc) it imposed on the 'fast-track' mode of impeachment," said Tinio.
He was referring to the events of Feb.5, 2025 when some 215 House members signed and then adopted in plenary an impeachment complaint--including the articles of impeachment--against Vice President Duterte.
The SC, acting on a petition from the Vice President's camp, struck down the complaint on the issue of constitutionality in July 2025. This was upheld in an SC En Banc ruling Thursday, Jan. 29.
"Bottom line: the SC scuttled the impeachment trial of the VP on a technicality," Tinio said.
"In walking back the grand claim that the "fast track" impeachment mode violated the due process rights of the Vice-President, the SC ruling on the MR now rests solely on a new-fangled doctrine that lack of timely action by the Secretary General or the Speaker on a complaint initiates an impeachment proceeding and triggers the one-year bar," he said.
"That bar is intended to protect officials from crank complaints and Congress from being tied up by multiple proceedings. None of these were ever an issue in the impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte by the 19th Congress," noted Tinio.
Expressing a similar sentiment was De Lima, who said that the SC En Banc decision veered away from the letter of the Constitution.
"While it basically rests on technicalities, the resolution denying the [MR] appears to be a derogation of the House’s constitutional powers and prerogatives...As such, this second decision is not merely a denial of the MR or an affirmation of the original decision. It reads like an altogether new decision but with the same result," she said.
"As the latest SC ruling closes several doctrinal loopholes in its original decision, the court also took the opportunity presented by the [MR] to restructure, refurbish, and refine novel doctrinal pronouncements via an addendum to the original ponencia," De Lima said.
She said that by redefining what constitutes the "initiation" of impeachment and by converting legislative inaction into a constitutionally operative act, the SC "has crossed from interpretation into legislation".
'It is judicial legislation—well-intentioned perhaps, but constitutionally infirm—because it straightjackets a co-equal branch through judicial overreach. The [SC] has not merely reviewed the House’s compliance with clear constitutional commands—it has rewritten the operating manual for impeachment initiation," she said.
"It has supplied new rules, new timelines, and new consequences that are nowhere found in the text. The effect is to discipline the procedure that the Constitution left for Congress to decide," De Lima further said.
She said this sets a "very dangerous precedent that weakens separation of powers by transforming impeachment from a political safeguard into a judicially managed process, contrary to the design and spirit of the Constitution".