Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon says Vice President Sara Duterte's declaration of her presidential bid in the 2028 elections is "irrelevant" to her freshly-initiated impeachment proceedings.

As Ridon succintly explained during his appearance at the Saturday Media Forum on Feb. 28, at Dapo Restaurant in Quezon City, one is a forward-looking development, while the other deals with consequences of alleged past actions.

"Tingin ko irrelevant ‘yun pong deklarasyon ni Vice President Sara Duterte sa pagka-pangulo dito po sa disposition po ng House Committee on Justice and the House in general, sa impeachment po niya mismo," the lawyer-solon said.

(I think the Vice President Sara Duterte’s declaration about the presidency is irrelevant to the disposition of the House Committee on Justice and of the House in general, with respect to her own impeachment.)

"The declaration of the Vice President relating to her presidency in 2028 is forward-looking. No question about it. Pero (But) the impeachment proceeding deals with things that are being alleged that she had done previously," noted Ridon.

It was last Feb. 18 when, rather out of the blue, Vice President Duterte announced that she would vie for the Palace seat in the 2028 polls.

Just five days later, the House plenary referred the four filed impeachment complaints against Duterte to the Committee on Justice, in a move that officially "initiated" the impeachment proceedings against the lady official this year.

The justice panel chaired by Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro is set to hold its first wave of public hearings on the four impeachment raps on March 2 to 4.

"I think the committee will focus on that and the House will ultimately focus on that,” Ridon, a member of the panel, said.

He noted that the first order of business would be to determine whether or not the complaint were sufficient in form and in substance. “We will deliberate it, we will vote on it on those two points next week."

"At kung magtutuloy-tuloy po ito towards full proceedings after determination of substance, then we will see po at the end of justice [committee] deliberation proceedings sa darating pong Miyerkules,” the party-list solon said.

(And if this proceeds toward full hearings after the determination of substance, then we will see at the conclusion of the justice committee’s deliberations this coming Wednesday.)