Just like first time? House seen to get 200+ votes  to impeach VP Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives can match or come close to the 215 signatories it gathered when it impeached Vice President Sara Duterte for the first time last year.

According to sources in the chamber, a large number of lawmakers have already signified their intent to support the impeachment report prepared by the House committee on justice.

Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon, a member of the committee, said: “We’re expecting the VP to be impeached next week.”

READ: House likely to back Sara Duterte impeachment – analysts

The impeachment report prepared by the panel is scheduled for plenary debates beginning May 11.

Ridon said a vote for impeachment by 215 lawmakers is attainable “at the very best.” The projected number is 109 votes more than the one-third of the chamber required for impeachment, or 106 of the 318 House members.

“So [this] 106 is all but certain, it’s just a question of how many more votes we will get,” Ridon told reporters on Monday, after the committee voted to approve its report.

‘Fake name’

While a source claimed the report already has the support of 200 lawmakers, another source who works closely with the congressmen disputed that information, saying much work is still needed to secure 200 votes.

What is clear so far is that 55 lawmakers will support Duterte’s impeachment.

READ: Lawyer: VP Sara Duterte’s impeachment defense ‘addled’

All 55 members of the justice committee had voted on Monday to approve its report detailing the articles of impeachment against the vice president.

Ridon also questioned that day a list circulating on social media of 15 lawmakers who had supposedly withdrawn their support for Duterte’s impeachment, as he cited a “fake name” in that list.

“Is there a congressman named Bier Rodriguez? None,” Ridon said.

The list includes at least four members of the House justice panel. But on Tuesday, two of those lawmakers denied withdrawing their support for the impeachment move.

‘Fake news’

Baguio City Rep. Mauricio Domogan said his inclusion in the list is “fake news as far as I am concerned.”

“We just voted for the approval of the report of the Justice Committee… declaring that there is probable cause and the attached Articles of Impeachment [should] be submitted to the plenary,” Domogan, a former mayor of Baguio, said in a text message to the Inquirer.

An aide of Leyte (third district) Rep. Anna Victoria Veloso-Tuazon, another committee member cited in the list, also disputed the congresswoman’s inclusion.

But the aide also explained that Tuazon’s missing signature in the impeachment report was because “she was on leave at that time, which is why she was not present when the articles of impeachment were being finalized.”

Veloso was among the signatories of the report’s initial draft, but she had not signed its final version.

VP’s ‘disposition’

Duterte is accused in the articles of impeachment of misuse of confidential funds, bribery, and unexplained wealth.

The articles that make up the impeachment report are also based on her online death threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

On Tuesday, the vice president was visiting her detained father in The Hague, where former President Rodrigo Duterte will be tried by the International Criminal Court for his drug war. She said she was unfazed by the possibility of her impeachment.

“I’ve always been like this, even before I was vice president,” she told reporters. “I don’t see my disposition will change because of a few problems here and there.”

But she also wondered why some lawmakers are already “so sure her impeachment will happen.”

She said, when asked about her plan to run for president in 2028, that “all my politician friends may have abandoned me, but our countrymen have not abandoned me.”

The vice president will be disqualified from holding public office if she is convicted in her impeachment trial. —With reports from Vincent Cabreza, Joey A. Gabieta, Isabelle Peachay, and Kenneth Christian Basilio /atm