A set of familiar faces filed a third impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday morning, Feb. 9 at the House of Representatives.

With voluminous paperwork in tow, a group of 13 priests, nuns, and Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP)-Cebu members led by their counsel, lawyer Amando Virgil Ligutan trooped to the office of the House Secretary General Cheloy Garafil to lodge their complaint.

House Deputy Minority Leader Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Rep. Leila de Lima served as endorser to the 98-page document, which was marked received by Garafil at past noon.

This was not Ligutan's first rodeo: he was also behind one of the three impeachment complaints filed against Vice President Duterte in December 2024, during the first collective attempt to impeach her at the tail end of the previous 19th Congress.

"Here we go again...This site is familiar kasi nandito rin kami [last year] (because we were also here last year)," said the lawyer following the filing.

With Monday morning's development, all three group impeachment filers from the 19th Congress have already lodged fresh complaints against the second highest official of the land.

"This is the second time that the third set of complainants, the group is filing an impeachment complaint against the Vice President. On what grounds? We are alleging, we are invoking the grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution; betrayal of public trust; plunder, malversatio, graft and corruption; bribery and other high crimes to the of P612.5 million," Ligutan said.

Last Feb. 2, a group of 45 activists and former Makabayan bloc solons filed the first impeachment complaint against the sitting Vice President in the current 20th Congress. Their feat were followed minutes later by 17 civil society and religious group members.

Incumbent Makabayan bloc solons ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co endorsed the first complaint, while De Lima and Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña endorsed the second complaint.

The Ligutan complaint is significant--and possibly strategic--because it is the first rap to be filed after the Feb. 5 reckoning date initially mentioned by the Supreme Court (SC). The reckoning date is determined by the one-year bar rule on the filing of impeachment complaints against impeachable officers, who in this case is the Vice President.

"It is contained in the complaint that the Vice President has amassed at least P612.5 million," the counsel said, referring to the confidential funds that was allegedly misused by Duterte.

"Do we give the Vice President a free pass just because she has a famous family?" he asked.

The high court had earlier declared as unconstitutional the fourth complaint that was pursued against Duterte via one-third vote in House plenary last year. All three previous complaints were archived.

The Makabayan and De Lima/ Cendaña-backed complaints were filed on the premise that the reckoning date came earlier on Jan. 14, based on the SC's second ruling on the defeated impeachment case.

The SC has yet to clarify which reckoning date would be followed.

De Lima has now endorsed two of the three impeachment complaints against Duterte this 20th Congress.

Ligutan added: "These complainants continue to believe that it is no longer just the constitutional obligation of the House of Representatives to impeach and for the Senate to remove from office the sitting Vice President."

"That obligation is no longer a constitutional one. It has become, and it remains to be a moral obligation of Congress to impeach and remove from office once and for all Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte," he said.

In a separate interview, De Lima, a former senator, said she was not barred for endorsing more than one impeachment complaint against Duterte.

"Wala pong prohibition for anyone, any endorser to endorse more than once. Wala po yan sa rules, wala po yan sa batas, wala po yan sa Constitution na isa lang dapat ang ie-endorse ng isang miyembro ng House of Representatives," she noted.

(There is no prohibition for anyone, any endorser, to endorse more than once. It is not in the rules, it is not in the law, it is not in the Constitution that a member of the House of Representatives may endorse only one complaint.)

De Lima admitted that some of the complainants were among her spiritual advisers during her incarceration in the previous Duterte administration.

De Lima claimed that the complaint filed before the secretary general Monday better than oen struck down by the SC last year.

"Ang mga grounds po hindi po nalalayo doon sa mga grounds na sinabi doon sa second complaint. Hindi rin po ito nalalayo doon sa pinaka-mismong grounds na ginamit ng (The grounds here are not far from those cited in the second complaint. Or are they that different from the very same grounds cited by) more than one-third of the House of Representatives last year endorsing, transmitting, and adopting the articles of impeachment and transmitting the same to the Senate," she said.

"Mas na-improve pa nga po (It's actually an improvement), it's an improved version actually if I must say...doon mismo sa mga articles of impeachment na ipinadala noon (to the articles of impeachment that was sent before), as signed and endorsed by more than one-third of the members of the House," she added.

The third complaint cites details in the affidavit of alleged former Duterte administration intelligence officer Ramil Madriaga. Madriaga has claimed to be a bagman of the Vice President.

Ligutan boasted that even without Madriaga's statements, the complaint was strong enough to impeach Duterte based on the alleged confidential funds misuse alone. He pointed to the supposed bogus recipients of the secret funds, which included the likes of "Mary Grace Piattos".

"We have certifications from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) saying that these individuals do not exist. They were not born, they're not dead, they are what they are--fictitious," he said.

"So the case will stand even without the affidavit of Ramil Madriaga. And here comes out of the blue, providing the missing link so to speak on how the Vice President actually did it. Ramil Madriaga's affidavit narrates how ths P125 million were actually spent in December 2022," Ligutan said, referring to part of the P612.5 million that has been flagged by the House.