Vice President Sara Duterte. FILE PHOTO

Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, through her lawyer, filed a petition before the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the impeachment complaint against her.

In her petition, Duterte questioned the validity and legality of the fourth impeachment case that was eventually transmitted by the to the Senate.

Duterte stressed that the first three impeachment complaints were not transmitted by House Secretary General Reginal Velasco to House Speaker Martin Romualdez. But on February 5, 2025, the fourth impeachment complaint signed by 215 congressmen was endorsed by the House to the Senate.

Duterte noted that under Section 3, Article XI of the Constitution, “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”

“By doing so, respondent House of Representatives deliberately circumvented and violated the One-Year Bar, and ran roughshod over and made a mockery of the procedures under the Constitution and the House Rules on Impeachment, not only compromising the integrity of the impeachment proceedings, but demonstrating that all of these is nothing more than a political maneuver,” Duterte added in her petition.

She cited previous cases settled by the Supreme Court, in which impeachment proceedings were deemed “initiated” upon the filing of the complaint and initial action of Congress on the complaint.

“The Fourth Impeachment Complaint is prohibited by the One-Year Bar as respondent House of Representatives already took initial action by deliberately freezing the First Three Impeachment Complaints; respondent Senate should be enjoined from acting on the Fourth Impeachment Complaint,” Duterte said.

Duterte added that the act of “freezing” the complaints to avoid the application of the one-year bar is the very act that called for its application.

“In this case, respondent House of Representatives already performed an intervening act after the filing of the First Three Impeachment Complaints and before their transmittal to the House Committee on Justice, specifically, the deliberate and calculated freezing and withholding thereof,” she said.

Duterte noted in the petition new reports that Velasco publicly revealed that several members of the House requested him not to refer any of the first three complaints.

She said the freezing of the first three complaints by the House through Velasco was tantamount to grave abuse of discretion.

Duterte thus asked the Supreme Court to set aside the fourth impeachment complaint and declare that the one year bar to be applicable from the filing of the first impeachment complaint, December 2, 2024.

Duterte’s lawyer Atty. Sheila Sison said the Duterte camp already asked the House Secretary General to provide a copy of the over 200 signatures of the lawmakers on the fourth impeachment complaint.

“We formally requested the Secretary General to provide us a certified true and correct copy of that,” she added.

Duterte’s camp filed the second legal challenge against the Vice President’s impeachment at the Supreme Court.