Bayan drafting impeachment complaint vs VP Sara Duterte – Casiño

VP Sara Duterte —File photo from the House of Representatives

MANILA, Philippines — Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) is in the process of drafting an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte,  former lawmaker Teddy Casiño, who chairs the progressive group, said on Thursday.

In a press briefing for Bayan Muna’s national convention in Quezon City, Casiño confirmed that the group would file the impeachment complaint — if finalized — before the House of Representatives on the resumption of its session in November.

“I’ll be speaking as chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, since that was asked, and the different people’s organizations under Bayan are now studying the possibility of filing an impeachment complaint, and the drafting of the complaint has started,” Casiño, a former Bayan Muna representative, told reporters.

“Of course, Congress is on a break so most likely if ever that will be filed, that will be around November, but we understand that there are other groups drafting their own complaint.  So there might even be multiple complaints, and definitely, we will need all the support that we can get, and if Bayan Muna will be part of that complaint, then that is good,” he added.

Once this is filed, Casiño said Duterte would have two options: resign from her post or face the impeachment complaint.

“But people’s organizations, through Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, are the ones preparing this complaint, and we’re expecting the progressive legislators to endorse such a complaint when the time comes,” he said.

“We think the remaining choices for Sara Duterte is either to resign or eventually to face impeachment.  We think other issues being hidden now will sprout, I think we are just scraping the surface of the anomalies related to the vice president,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bayan Muna chair and former representative Neri Colmenares said that while they will let the people through Bayan file the impeachment complaint, they will only support these moves to hold Duterte accountable.

“The catch-all grounds for impeachment is Betrayal of Public Trust, right?  Because of what she did.  Now, it’s the priority, in accordance with Bayan Muna’s point of view, that the people file the complaint, and because that’s a move of people’s organization, we would not hesitate to support that,” Colmenares said.

Duterte has insisted for the past several months that an impeachment complaint against her is being discussed among lawmakers.  However, key members of the House leadership denied this, saying that lawmakers’ attention was on crafting the 2025 budget.

Last August 27, at the deliberations of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) proposed budget for 2025, Duterte claimed that a friend of hers had a recording of lawmakers discussing the impeachment complaint.

Then, last September 18, Duterte called the hearings of the House committee on good government and public accountability as a dry run of impeachment proceedings against her.

READ: VP Sara Duterte: House hearing on OVP a dry run of impeachment

However, lawmakers have asked Duterte to pinpoint who among them is discussing these issues, as they believe such talks are not happening.  On Tuesday, Deputy Speaker David Suarez and other lawmakers said that while they are disappointed with Duterte’s behavior — skipping deliberations on her office’s budget — an impeachment complaint is not on the House’s table.

READ: No impeachment rap vs VP Sara despite frustrations with her – solons

Meanwhile, Bayan said it might be necessary to impeach Duterte so that she can be held accountable for fund utilization issues.

Deliberations on OVP’s budget revealed that several of the agency’s expenditures, particularly confidential funds (CF), were flagged by state auditors.  On Wednesday, Good Government and Public Accountability chairperson and Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said the amount involved already exceeds the P50 million threshold for plunder cases.

Chua was referring to the P73 million of the P125 million CF of the OVP in 2022 that the Commission disallowed on Audit (COA), and the P164 million of the P375 million CF flagged by COA in 2023.