No rule violated in filing impeachment raps vs Sara Duterte – Makabayan
“That is the effect of the constant changing of the SC’s decision just to junk the impeachment.”
MANILA — The Makabayan coalition expressed dismay over the Justice Committee’s decision to set aside the impeachment complaint filed against Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday, March 2, 2026.
During the committee’s deliberation on the impeachment complaint against Sara Duterte, Justice Committee Vice Chairperson and Bukidnon Rep. Jonathan Keith Flores made a motion to set aside the first impeachment complaint filed by the progressive groups on the basis of the one-year bar rule.
“We firmly maintain that no constitutional provision or House rule was violated when we filed our complaint on February 2, 2026 and we stated our position clearly at the committee,” Makabayan said in its statement.
House Committee on Justice Chairperson Gerville Luistro said that with the setting aside of the impeachment complaint, it “will no longer be included in the proceedings.”
The complaint was found “sufficient in substance,” but when put into a vote whether to set aside or not, 22 legislators voted in favor of the motion to be set aside, 10 against and no one abstained. In the Supreme Court ruling dated July 25, 2025, the high court said that no new impeachment complaint “may be commenced earlier than February 6, 2026″ in the House of Representatives.
But Makabayan argued that the February 6 reckoning is no longer valid because it was based on an earlier decision that the SC later changed in January 2026. “As the SC had to flip flop on its basis to junk the articles of impeachment during the 19th congress, the new reckoning of the one year bar is at the very least January 15, 2026,” Makabayan said.
The coalition further explained that this is under a new SC ruling stating that the bar came into effect when the House failed to include three impeachment complaints in the order of business within 10 session days and that a session day was redefined as being one calendar day. A plain reading of the January 2026 SC ruling will bear this out, the group said.
Meanwhile, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) President Renato Reyes Jr. argued in that “when everyone pointed out that the SC was factually wrong, that the House acted first on the fourth complaint before archiving the first three complaints, the SC had to find another basis for junking the fourth complaint.”
The SC Resolution promulgated on January 28, 2026, said that the “first impeachment complaint failed to follow the constitutional periods,” and any succeeding complaints are barred by Article 6, Section 3(5).
Article 6, Section 3(5) states that “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”
The reason behind this barring the complaints is that on the filing date of the first complaint on December 2, 2024, the House was required to include it in the Order of Business by January 14, 2025, and refer it to the proper committee by January 21, 2025.
Based on the resolution, “the end of the one-year bar should have been January 15, 2026,” Reyes said. “That is the effect of the constant changing of the SC’s decision just to junk the impeachment.”
But beyond the procedural debate, the Makabayan coalition argued that the “we would not be facing these legal complications today if the impeachment of Sara Duterte had been allowed to run its proper course last year.”
For them, the Senate prolonged the trial, SC intervened, and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. stood in the way.
The Makayan bloc believed that this shields a sitting Duterte from accountability and is grossly unfair, unjust, and unacceptable.
They also called on the House of Representatives to assert its constitutional authority and independence as it has the power to craft its own rules on impeachment.
Under the Philippine Constitution, a guilty verdict on an impeachment trial by the Senate would end Duterte’s political career and her plan to enter the 2028 presidential bid would be thwarted.
“To do otherwise is to be complicit in the continuing culture of impunity that has long plagued this country,” the Makabayan said.
Akbayan Partylist and Mamamayang Liberal on the other hand withdrew the impeachment complaint against Sara Duterte, saying they will support the third impeachment complaint instead. (With reports from Anne Marxze D. Umil) AMU, RVO
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