Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said Monday that the impeachment rules do not require Vice President Sara Duterte to appear before the Senate should it convene as an impeachment court — but he made clear he believes she ought to show up anyway.
“Our rules do not say that Duterte is compelled to attend. But perhaps she should,” Sotto told DZBB, adding: “Yes, she should attend. It would be better to attend the trial.”
The remarks come after Duterte repeatedly skipped the House Committee on Justice hearings despite multiple invitations to personally address the allegations against her. The panel pressed ahead without her and ultimately approved a report containing the articles of impeachment.
Sotto drew on two historical precedents to frame the issue. Former President Joseph Estrada was unable to attend his own impeachment trial, which ran from December 7, 2000, to January 16, 2001, before collapsing when House prosecutors walked out after the court voted against opening the so-called “Jose Velarde envelope” linked to Estrada. Former Chief Justice Renato Corona took a different approach — he attended his trial in full before being convicted and removed from office in May 2012.
On the procedural side, Sotto said he would move quickly if the articles of impeachment land in the Senate. “I will take the proper action that a Senate president must do,” he said, describing a process that begins with senators taking their oaths as judges, the Senate president acting as presiding officer, and the issuance of notices to all parties involved.
He also signaled a firm intent to hold a pre-trial phase before any trial proper begins — a lesson he said he drew from the Corona proceedings. “We received everything in December, the chief justice submitted his answer on December 26, and we began the trial proper on January 16. By February, the presentation had become chaotic because there was no pre-trial,” Sotto said in Filipino.
He credited then-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile with course-correcting mid-trial by calling for a pre-trial even after proceedings had already started. Sotto said the Rules of Court apply to Senate impeachment proceedings in a suppletory manner, making such a pre-trial permissible under existing rules.
