MANILA – The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio welcomed the Supreme Court’s move regarding their petition challenging the impeachment complaint against her.
Atty. Sheila Sison, Duterte-Carpio’s legal counsel, said the Vice President has complete faith that the High Court will thoroughly address the issues they raised regarding the impeachment.
“We welcome the development that the Supreme Court has directed the respondents to comment on the Petition,” Sison said in a statement.
“We have complete faith that the Court will thoroughly address the legal issues we submitted in the Petition for this consideration, it being the final arbiter of the law,” she added.
SC spokesperson Atty. Camille Ting said on Tuesday that the High Court’s En Banc ordered the House of Representatives to respond on Duterte-Carpio’s petition within a non-extendible period of 10 days.
Duterte-Carpio, in her petition filed last week, questioned the validity and constitutionality of the impeachment complaint.
She argued that it should be declared null and void as it violated the Constitution’s one-year ban on filing multiple impeachment complaints. She pointed out that the House had already acted on three prior complaints by not forwarding them to the Speaker’s office, among other reasons.
The SC is also assessing whether the Vice President’s petition should be consolidated with another case filed by Mindanao lawyers, who are seeking a cease-and-desist order to stop the Senate from proceeding with the impeachment trial./PN
