Impeach complaint rock-solid, says prosecutor

The impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte is rock-solid and nothing in it is unconstitutional, flawed or violative of due process, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro said yesterday.

- JOSE RODEL CLAPANO and DELON PORCALLA

The Batangas lawmaker was debunking claims raised by supporters of the Vice President in their petition before the Supreme Court to stop her Senate impeachment trial.

"First, they stated we did not follow the rules on verification. It is clear in our Constitution that Congress shall promulgate its own rules on impeachment. And to be precise, we followed word for word the rules of the 19th Congress of the Philippines as far as the verification is concerned," Luistro, a member of the 11-member House prosecution panel, said in a television interview.

She stressed the complaint was properly signed and affirmed by 215 members of the House of Representatives.

“Second, they also made mention that the verification was only inserted days after the filing in the Senate. That is not true. As a matter of fact, during the caucus, which is the same time when the 215 members of the House affixed their signatures, the verification page was already incorporated in the complaint,” she said.

“It was on the same day, it was on the same occasion, where the congressmen made an oath in connection with the verification needed for the impeachment complaint,” Luistro maintained.

“Let us all be reminded, most of the grounds are subject matter of investigation in the quad committee and even in the committee on good government,” she added.

“I wish to share that as early as last year, when the three impeachment complaints were filed, there had been an individual evaluation from our congressmen and it was because of the intercession of the political parties that made us team up with this fourth impeachment complaint to be able to catch up with the limited number of sessions that were remaining, saving the impeachment process from the alleged one-year prescription period,” she added.