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MANILA, Philippines — The House committee on justice will move its scheduled hearing on the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte to an earlier date if she fails to comment on the cases within 10 days.
Committee chairperson Rep. Gerville Luistro made this clear on Friday, saying absence of comment would be taken as blanket denial.
“The legal implication of that is that it will be considered as a general denial. It is considered that the allegations contained in the complaint are denied by the respondent. That is in the event that she doesn’t file an answer to the impeachment complaints,” Luistro told reporters.
Immediately after voting on Thursday to declare the two impeachment complaints sufficient in substance, Luistro directed Duterte to submit comments within 10 calendar days or by March 15. The panel, however, has agreed to receive her comment the following day, with March 15 being a Sunday.
Failure of the Duterte camp to beat the March 16 deadline would prompt the committee to proceed with the hearing on March 17 or 18, ahead of the April 8 original schedule.
“Somehow it will expedite the process because if there is no answer, there is no reason to file a reply. And if there is no reply, there is no reason to file a rejoinder,” Luistro said.
“And we will immediately proceed to the determination of the existence of sufficient ground that supports the impeachment complaint,” she added.
“If there are affidavits and counter-affidavits, they need to be sworn in as well before the justice committee. When all of these are complete, that is the time that we will be determining whether or not there’s sufficient ground that supports the impeachment complaint. If the answer to that is yes, then we proceed to step four,” she said, referring to the hearing proper.
“We will be hearing the oral testimony of the parties before the justice committee,” she added.
“We will still invite her. Even if she doesn’t file a reply to the impeachment complaints, an invitation will still be issued to her for the purpose of our hearing proper. But then again, if she doesn’t come, this is part of her due process. This is the same interpretation to the answer. If she doesn’t appear in the hearing, it will be interpreted as her waiver to be present during the hearing proper,” the Batangas lawmaker added.
Confronting Marcos
As efforts to impeach her make progress, Duterte appeared in her new online show “Ibalik ang Tapang at Malasakit” to claim that she confronted President Marcos in November 2023 about moves to have her ousted through impeachment.
“If you remember, in November 2023, he left for the United States for APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). Before he left, one day before, I called Sen. Imee Marcos. I told her to accompany me because I need to talk to BBM. I need to bring Sen. Imee because I’m not BBM’s friend. He’s just my colleague. He’s just the President for me,” Duterte said.
Duterte, a close ally-turned-arch critic of President Marcos, resigned as education secretary and vice chairperson of the government’s anti-insurgency task force in June 2024, after her relationship with the Marcoses soured.
“I confronted BBM directly. I told him, why is there an impeachment plan in the House of Representatives? He said, you know BBM speaks English, he said, ‘That’s not true. There’s nothing like that.’ Then, his denial was stopped because he said that the priority is Charter change,” Duterte said.
No conspiracy
In a statement, the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives rejected Duterte’s pronouncements that the investigation on her confidential funds is being used a political weapon and is a conspiracy among her political foes.
“We, the Makabayan bloc, reject Vice President Sara Duterte’s recycled claim that the House inquiry on her confidential funds was a political weapon and a supposed ‘conspiracy’ against her. These are rehashed lines – ‘gasgas na script’ – meant to evade accountability by playing the victim,” the militant lawmakers said in a joint statement.
Comprising the Makabayan bloc are Act Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Sarah Elago and Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Louise Co.
