KARAPATAN assails the Senate’s decision to remand the articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives, a move that may result in the delay or suspension of the impeachment trial of Sara Duterte or even in the dismissal of the charges against her altogether, albeit in a roundabout way.
The Senate had been constituted as an impeachment court on June 10, 2025 after 22 Senators took their oath as Senator-Judges to try Vice Pres. Sara Duterte for misusing her Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) as well as for other crimes.
Early on in the trial, however, a motion by pro-Duterte Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to dismiss the charges against Sara Duterte set the tone for a subsequent motion to remand the articles of impeachment to the House, supposedly to clarify alleged constitutional infirmities, including allegations that there was a violation of the rule of only one impeachment complaint per year.
It is already cause for anger that the Senate wasted too much time since the articles of impeachment were transmitted to it by the House of Representatives last February 5, 2025. Convening itself as an impeachment court a full four months after receiving the articles of impeachment moreover was a violation of the Senate’s constitutional mandate to try the vice president “forthwith.”
Now that the Senate has found another way to impede the progress of Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, suspicions are even more rife about an under-the-table deal by the warring Duterte and Marcos cliques. The Senate’s and even Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s equivocations plus maneuvers by pro-Duterte senators to derail or cancel the trial altogether will surely outrage the people who have long been demanding justice and accountability from our public officials.
With the preponderance of evidence against Sara Duterte already at hand, KARAPATAN stands with the people in assailing the Senate for shirking its constitutional duty to try Sara Duterte. The people had been expecting no less than a conviction, Duterte’s perpetual disqualification from public office and the filing of criminal charges against her.
KARAPATAN joins the people in raising their demands for justice and accountability in other arenas of struggle beyond the halls of parliament.