House prosecutors: Sara Duterte reply lacks material response

MANILA, Philippines — The House prosecution panel for Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial said her official reply to the charges offered no “material response,” as it filed a manifestation on Monday that stopped short of a formal rebuttal as such would serve no “useful purpose” for the proceedings.

The five-page manifestation, submitted by House Secretary General Cheloy Garafil to the Senate, said that Duterte merely raised “procedural, jurisdiction and constitutional objections” instead of counter-evidence against the accusations of wrongdoing against her

“The Answer raises no material factual issue that requires a responsive pleading,” it said. 

“It does not meaningfully engage the factual allegations in the Articles of Impeachment, but instead concentrates on procedural, jurisdictional, and constitutional objections directed against the continuation of the proceedings.”

The prosecution team’s manifestation to Duterte’s answer capped the initial phase of her impeachment proceedings, which began when the Senate convened as a court on May 18 and called for Duterte’s response on May 20.

The vice president officially replied on June 1, with her lawyers arguing the impeachment charges “suffer from fatal constitutional, procedural and substantive defects” and, therefore, should be dismissed.

READ: Executive summary of Sara Duterte’s answer to impeach articles

“The Answer offers no coherent factual narrative that directly refutes the charges set forth in the Articles of Impeachment,” the prosecution’s manifestation said. 

Duterte was impeached by the House on May 11, after 257 lawmakers overwhelmingly endorsed the accusations that the vice president misused secret funds allotted to her office, bribed officials to circumvent procurement guidelines, amassed unexplained wealth, and plotted to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated if she were killed.

The vice president’s reply to the impeachment charges did not provide an explanation addressing the substance of the allegations, “therefore the Answer does not function as a genuine response to the charges, but as an attempt to secure the outright dismissal of the impeachment case on threshold of constitutional and procedural grounds,” according to the manifestation. 

The prosecution team’s submission said the Senate’s impeachment rules and the 1987 Constitution do not allow dismissal of the case based on Duterte’s assertions, stressing that only a full-blown trial could resolve it.

“But seeking a disposition outside this framework, the Answer attempts to ventilate matters that properly belong to the trial proper,” the manifestation said.

It added that the objections raised by Duterte in her formal response questioned the lower chamber’s power to initiate impeachment proceedings, a power that “cannot be subjected to review, revision or nullification by the Senate.”

Duterte’s answer raised the notion that the House committee on justice exceeded the constitutional limits of its authority when it held a “mini-trial” in April, during which the panel held a series of “clarificatory hearings” examining the trove of evidence supporting the charges against her.

“To entertain such issues at this stage, would, in effect, convert the Senate into an appellate reviewing authority over a constitutionally independent act of initiation by the House,” the manifestation stated. /das