Vice President (VP) Sara Duterte is seeking to dismiss the fourth impeachment complaint against her, describing it as “nothing more than a scrap of paper.”
The 35-page Answer Ad Cautelam submitted on Monday, June 23, insisted that the fourth impeachment complaint is “void ab initio,” or an action that never had any legal effect because it violated the One-Year Bar Rule under Section 3 (5) Article XI of the 1987 Constitution.
The section prohibits the initiation of more than one impeachment proceeding against the same official within one year.
“There are no statements of ultimate facts in the Fourth Impeachment Complaint. Stripped of its “factual” and legal conclusions, it is nothing more than a scrap of paper; and being laden with conclusions of “facts” and law, the Fourth Impeachment Complaint is a clear abuse of the impeachment process,” the Vice President’s Answer Ad Cautelam read.
“Since there are no statements of ultimate facts, there is nothing for the Vice President to answer,” it added.
RH Raymund Dadpaas reported on Tuesday, June 24, that VP Duterte’s camp echoed the statement, adding that the Senate’s Impeachment Court had remanded the Articles of Impeachment to the House of Representatives (HOR).
Due to this, they said there was no reason for the issuance of a Summons to compel the Vice President to answer the allegations in the Articles of Impeachment. Moreover, they stated that Article VII of the Fourth Impeachment Complaint does not contain any factual declarations “purporting to constitute any impeachable offenses.”
“A reading of this Article will show that it is a mere summation of the 19th HOR’s layers and layers of legal and factual conclusions,” the document read.
“As explained and demonstrated above, the totality of the circumstances invariably shows that there are no grounds for the impeachment of the Vice President. Conviction cannot thus be sustained,” it added.
With this, VP Duterte said she will enter a plea of not guilty, without waiving any of her jurisdictional and other objections over the charges.
The Vice President also insisted that Congress has no power to declare or analyze whether the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education’s (DepEd) confidential funds are legal. She argued that such cases should be under the Commission on Audit (COA), adding that all its Notices of Disallowance have yet to be finalized.
This also applies to the alleged threats towards President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez. The allegations, as Duterte’s camp argues, must be proven with evidence and not through an on-air broadcast on social media.
On Monday, RH Milky Rigonan reported that the HOR had received a copy of the Vice President’s Answer Ad Cautelam, through Arnel Barrientos, a messenger from the Fortun, Narvasa & Salazar law firm.
Considering the document was submitted within the 10-day notice, the House Prosecution panel will be given five days to respond.
