Answer of Vice President Sara Duterte

The Articles of Impeachment¹ are void because:

Respondent only admits the allegations in the Articles insofar as it states her election,¹⁴ assumption to the Office of the Vice President,¹⁵ and terms of her previous offices as Secretary of Education,¹⁶ Mayor,¹⁷ and Vice Mayor of Davao City.¹⁸

The rest of the allegations in the Articles, including the supposed evidence attached therein, are specifically denied for being false, misleading, impertinent, mere conclusions of fact and law, and subject to the affirmative allegations and special and affirmative defenses below.

The HOR of the 20th Congress prefaced the Articles of Impeachment with a sweeping indictment of the Vice President, claiming that she has purportedly “attempted to dismantle the very foundation of accountability upon which the Republic is built.”¹⁹

Yet, a genuine fidelity to law and accountability, especially within the sphere of a constitutional mechanism as the impeachment process, is not subservient to any political agenda. Our Constitution did not put in place impeachment as an accountability measure only for it to be abused by those in power.

Those who crafted the Articles of Impeachment further claim that the Vice President has “rendered herself an outcast to the Constitution and a threat to the democratic order she was sworn to uphold”,²⁰ conveniently forgetting that no less than the Supreme Court declared the first impeachment effort in 2025 originating from the House of Representatives of the 19ᵗʰ Congress, as constitutionally infirm, null and void ab initio, and said Articles of Impeachment violated due process of law.²¹

Thus, when the architects of these Articles of Impeachment accuse the Vice President of rendering herself an outcast to the Constitution, they feign amnesia of the legally recorded fact that it was the HOR that was found to have historically acted outside the bounds of the Constitution and committed grave abuse of discretion in its effort to impeach the Vice President. They ignore at will that just a few months ago, that finding of unconstitutionality and grave abuse of discretion on the part of the HOR was made final by the Supreme Court.²² It is therefore not the Vice President who carries an immutable record of gravely abusing her discretion and violating her Constitutional mandate.

Fidelity to law and the Constitution is neither forgetful nor selective. Neither does it submit to the convenience of those in power nor does it excuse the very abuses it purports to reject.

In its January 28, 2026 Resolution in Duterte vs. House of Representatives, et al.,²³ the Supreme Court reminds us:

The Articles of Impeachment and the purported evidence transmitted by the HOR are the product of an impeachment proceeding that bears all the hallmarks of grave abuse of discretion at its very foundation. The televised coverage of the committee hearings made it clear that the birth of the Articles of Impeachment was a foregone conclusion and the hearings were staged performances and a trawling search of justification for a pre-ordained result.

The circumstances surrounding the impeachment proceedings in the HOR and its Committee on Justice, and the approval of the Articles of Impeachment, indubitably point to the fact that none of the allegations in the four (4) Articles rises to the level of any impeachable offense. Neither the charges in the Articles nor the claimed evidence satisfy constitutional and legal standards.

Here, while the constitutional authority of the HOR is expressly and narrowly confined to the initiation of impeachment proceedings under Section 3(1), Article XI of the Constitution, the well-publicized hearings conducted by the Committee on Justice, however, reveal a clear effort to circumvent this limitation by transforming its proceeding into a fishing expedition and de facto trial that the Committee Chairperson described in her media interviews as a “mini-trial.”²⁵

In fact, the alleged evidence procured by the HOR in this mini-trial were not part of the Saballa and Cabrera Complaints referred to it for evaluation, which further proves that the impeachment proceeding was an angling excursion. The curated production and presentation of evidence extraneous to the two Complaints betray a calculated effort to circumvent the constitutional boundaries that define the limits of the HOR’s role in the impeachment process. Simply put, the HOR’s mini-trial was, in reality, a prohibited fishing expedition to gather indirectly what it is not authorized to do by direct constitutional means.

Certainly, our Constitution does not permit encroachment of constitutional boundaries, whether direct or indirect. The rule of law abhors circumvention of constitutional limitations to power, regardless of some proclaimed lofty ideals. Under our system of government, no branch may usurp powers and

Thus, on April 1, 2026, the respondent filed with the Supreme Court a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition [With Urgent Application for Temporary Restraining Order and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction] dated March 30, 2026 entitled “Sara Z. Duterte v. House of Representatives, et al.” and docketed as G.R. No. E-05667.²⁶ The material averments in that Petition as well as all records and annexes appended thereto are adopted and repleaded herein by reference.²⁷

Given that the Supreme Court has yet to rule on said Petition and this Honorable Court had ordered the respondent to submit her Answer to the Articles of Impeachment within a non-extendible period of ten days from her receipt of the Summons on May 20, 2026, the respondent is thus constrained to file this Answer.

Nonetheless, as the Petition questions the constitutionality of the acts taken by the HOR as well as of the Saballa and Cabrera Complaints, the respondent is submitting this Answer without waiver of any jurisdictional and other objections already raised long before the transmittal of the Articles to this Honorable Court. The respondent maintains her position that the Articles of Impeachment are unconstitutional and thus void ab initio for the reasons enumerated here.

Being unconstitutional and void ab initio, the Articles of Impeachment must be struck down and the impeachment case dismissed outright. This is the only recourse consistent with the design of the Bill of Rights, that applies to the entire impeachment process,²⁸ to preserve the ideals of liberty, equality, and security “against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, and the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles”²⁹ shown in the proceedings conducted by the HOR and the Committee on Justice.

The foregoing allegations are repleaded herein by reference.

Impeachment proceedings are void, being attended by evident bad faith and manifest partiality. The opening speeches of Committee on Justice Chairperson, and its members’ declarations that they already possess enough “evidence” or “votes” to impeach the respondent even before the conclusion of their mini-trial demonstrate that the resulting alleged finding of probable cause was a foregone conclusion.

The Constitution ordained that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”³⁰ It has been held that “[a]ny violation of the right cannot be condoned, for the impartiality of the judge who sits on and hears a case, and decides it is an indispensable requisite of procedural due process.”³¹

The Supreme Court has declared that “[a]s with all constitutional processes, impeachment must be exercised with strict adherence to due process and fairness. It is not a stage for political drama or factional fights. It should be invoked only when truly necessary, and always in the service of the public good.”³²

In Lai v. People of the Philippines,³³ it was held that proceedings are not orchestrated plays in which the parties are supposed to make the motions and reach the denouement according to a prepared script and that litigants are entitled to a fair and impartial proceeding:

Compounding the constitutional infirmities of the Articles, members of the Committee on Justice openly declared in various media interviews their predetermined resolve to impeach the respondent well before the committee hearings had even commenced and concluded. These public declarations strip any pretense of impartiality of those who evaluated the Impeachment Complaints and expose the true

As early as February 21, 2026, Rep. Bienvenido Abante, Jr.³⁴ the endorser of the Cabrera complaint and a member of the Committee on Justice proclaimed that he is “confident” that “the House of Representatives will secure enough votes to send the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte to the Senate for the second time amid the new petitions filed against her.”³⁵ When asked “if the lower chamber has enough numbers to transmit the impeachment complaints against Duterte to the Senate to proceed with the impeachment trial,” he willingly avowed “[m]ore than enough, yes.”³⁶

Likewise, even before the committee hearings could commence, one of the committee members, Rep. Leila De Lima,³⁷ who is also a known critic of the respondent and the endorser of the Saballa complaint, made statements during the supposed deliberation on the sufficiency of form and substance of the impeachment complaints that revealed a prejudgment on the probative value and admissibility of the alleged pieces of evidence against the respondent.

According to her, the accusations contained in the Saballa complaint are purportedly truthful – “the Complaint states not just ultimate facts […] hindi po ito mga alegasyong imbento o haka-haka lamang. They have been the subject of legislative inquiries, media scrutiny, and official documentation.”³⁸

Such a pronouncement by a member of the committee tasked to evaluate the Impeachment Complaints prematurely presumes the existence, authenticity, and credibility of purported materials and allegations in the Saballa complaint despite these having yet to be formally presented before this Honorable Court, authenticated, or subjected to rigorous examination.

By treating the allegations against the respondent as established truth even before trial begins, the Committee on Justice has in effect prejudged the evidentiary weight of supposed materials that, at this very point, have yet to be introduced before this Honorable Court.

Moreover, during the hearing on March 25, 2026, members of the Committee on Justice were the ones who actively moved to subpoena witnesses and documents to augment the impeachment complaints that were supposedly under evaluation.

Likewise, after said committee hearing, or on March 28, 2026, Vice Chairperson Rep. Ysabel Maria Zamora³⁹ already pronounced her “confidence” that the HOR has enough numbers to impeach the respondent:

It is thus alarming that members of the Committee on Justice saw fit to publicly announce that the HOR already had the numbers to impeach the respondent when the hearings have not yet begun and evaluation of the Impeachment Complaints has yet to be concluded.

Clearly, the Committee on Justice exceeded the bounds of its authority and usurped a constitutional authority that the Constitution did not vest in it with the intent to prejudge matters that can only be determined after supposed pieces of evidence have been established before the proper court and with the required degree of proof.

This congressional overreach goes against the spirit and principle of accountability that the HOR so loudly professes to champion, exposing a contradiction between its proclaimed ideals and the constitutionally repugnant manner in which it has conducted the impeachment proceedings.

As the Supreme Court said in Lai,⁴² litigants are entitled to no less than an assurance the judge must not only be impartial but must also appear to be impartial as an added assurance to the parties that his decision will be just.⁴³ The litigants are entitled to no less than that.⁴⁴ They should be sure that when their rights are violated they can go to a judge who shall give them justice.⁴⁵ They must trust the judge, otherwise they will not go to him at all.⁴⁶ They must believe in his sense

Here, it cannot be disputed that the committee and its members were determined to impeach the respondent from the outset, and the supposed hearings were mere formalities to clothe an otherwise predetermined conclusion with the appearance of due process.

The Committee on Justice conducted a constitutionally impermissible trial. The Articles are the product of an unconstitutional usurpation of power that neither constitutionally belongs to the HOR nor its Committee on Justice. This procedural artifice of conducting a mini-trial where the apparent intent was to trawl for evidence against the respondent and interpreting them to systematically impugn her reputation before the general public, is a direct affront to the Constitution which exclusively vests the power to try an impeachment case solely in the Senate.

The Constitution provides that “[t]he Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.”⁴⁹ “Sole” means the only one;⁵⁰ and “try,” in legal parlance, means the presentation, reception, and evaluation of evidence by a court possessed of jurisdiction to try a case. No other government body has the power to try impeachment cases. The HOR’s function is limited only to initiating impeachment cases.⁵¹

Yet here, the Committee on Justice conducted precisely what it is not authorized to do and which only the Senate acting as an impeachment court is empowered to do.

On March 18, 2026, the HOR issued a Press Release setting the “hearing proper” on March 25, April 14, April 22, and April 29, 2026 for supposed presentation of “evidence” and “witnesses”:

On the same day, with Committee on Justice Chairperson Rep. Gerville Luistro⁵³ proclaimed in a media interview that their intended hearings will be a “mini-trial” because according to her, “what is important is to give ample opportunity to the complainants to present their witness and evidence per ground.”

Pursuant to this “mini-trial,” Letters⁵⁵ were sent to the Committee on Justice and the HOR through the Speaker, containing motions that request for subpoena duces tecum of purported evidence and adequate protection of Ramil Madriaga. She likewise repeated her position that the respondent’s counsel “are not allowed to participate yet in the proceeding before the Justice Committee,” emphasizing that direct examination and the cross-examination must be conducted by said committee’s members alone.⁵⁶

In another interview on March 20, 2026,⁵⁷ Rep. Luistro also declared that “it should be the respondent herself presenting the evidence assisted by lawyers”⁵⁸ and that “committee members are supposed to examine the evidence and the witnesses which are being presented by the complainant on one hand and the respondent on the other hand.”⁵⁹

Another member of said committee, Rep. Terry L. Ridon,⁶⁰ also adverted to a trial-like process which further reveal the true nature of their “hearings:”

In response to this attempt to set the stage for an unauthorized trial before the HOR, the respondent, through counsel, sent a Letter⁶² on even date to the Committee on Justice reminding its members that it has no jurisdiction to conduct any form of trial or exercise any of its incidents, and placed her objection on record to any requests, motions, or similar efforts aimed at obtaining or “fishing” for supposed evidence through processes that necessarily presuppose the existence of lawful authority and jurisdiction under the Constitution which, in this case, are absent.

Determined to conduct an unauthorized trial, the Committee on Justice then proceeded to craft supposed “Guidelines”⁶³ during its initial hearing on March 25, 2026, where its members also embarked on motions to subpoena witnesses. These guidelines purport to govern the committee rules on the “examination of witnesses,” which were not published or approved by the plenary prior to the hearings:

According to the Committee Report No. 261,⁶⁴ the Committee on Justice likewise decided the sequence of the reception of evidence, another indicator of a trial proceeding:

The subsequent hearings held on April 14, 22, and 29, 2026 exposed the true nature of the committee proceedings. Those called to appear before it were dubbed as mere resource persons when, in substance, they were called to testify and produce purported documentary evidence pursuant to the compulsory process of subpoenas issued by the Committee on Justice. The proceedings therefore partook the nature of a trial, which only this Honorable Court is authorized to conduct under Section 3(6), Article XI of the Constitution.

Based on the same Committee Report No. 261, “a total of 22 resource persons appeared and testified⁶⁶ before the Committee during the said April hearings:”⁶⁷

It is thus clear from the Committee Report No. 261, that the proceedings the Committee on Justice conducted were, by every intendment and result, a trial, where its members requested for issuance of subpoenas and were indeed issued. Likewise, witnesses were summoned by compulsory process, testimonies were taken, alleged evidence were produced, identified, and presented to the general public, and the entire procedure was governed by rules of procedure in the guise of some “Guidelines” that were never published nor approved by the plenary before the committee hearings.

Worse, the alleged documentary and testimonial evidence presented during the committee were not part of the Impeachment Complaints, including the purported Supplemental Affidavit of Ramil Madriaga, Affidavit of former Senator Antonio Trillanes, the supposed reports and data of alleged financial transactions submitted by the Anti-Money Laundering Council,⁶⁹ the NBI reports and testimonies,⁷⁰ and the Commission on Audit⁷¹ Decision.⁷² All these were obtained and considered by the Committee on Justice after the respondent already filed her Answer.⁷³

Equally telling is the Committee on Justice’s consistent and deliberate use of the term “testimony” throughout its proceedings. The language employed by the Committee on Justice reveals how the proceedings were treated in substance. “Testimony” is a term firmly rooted in adversarial proceedings, which connotes the presentation of evidence before a tribunal clothed with jurisdiction to evaluate, weigh, and ultimately rule upon the evidence. The committee’s repeated use of this term underscores the fact that it usurped an authority that the Constitution did not place in the HOR, let alone a mere committee.

In fact, the Articles stripped away any remaining pretense of the HOR and its Committee on Justice. In its penultimate portion, they declared their intent to present additional witnesses, documents, and other so-called evidence:

Logically, a reservation to present additional witnesses under these circumstances implies that witnesses had indeed already been presented. This further implies that the proceeding conducted by the Committee on Justice was indeed a trial where evidence were received, regardless of any attempt to alter what in their own words plainly establishes as a “mini-trial.”

Articles of Impeachment include acts unrelated to respondent and her office. The Articles include purported acts or omissions that were outside her present term as Vice President and supposedly committed during her tenure as Mayor and Vice Mayor of Davao City, which are non-impeachable offices.

However, in Duterte,⁷⁵ the Supreme Court reminded that “the basis of any charge in impeachment proceedings must be for impeachable acts or omissions committed in relation to the office, and during the current term, of the impeachable officer.”⁷⁶

In the Resolution of the same case, the Supreme Court stated that fairness and non-arbitrariness principles of due process require that “the basis of any charge must be for impeachable acts or omissions committed in relation to their office and during the current term of the impeachable officer.”⁷⁷

Yet, in defiance of those settled constitutional requirements of due process and non-arbitrariness, the charges in the Articles include records, documents, and alleged acts as early as 2007, or before the respondent even assumed her position as Vice President, and thus, outside her current term of an impeachable office.

At the committee hearing held on April 22, 2026, the Office of the Ombudsman submitted the respondent’s SALNs for 2007 to 2012, 2013, and 2016 to 2022 in compliance with the Subpoena issued by the Committee on Justice:

The Articles include data allegedly contained in the respondent’s SALNs for the years 2007 to 2024, clearly inclusive of terms and prior offices that are non-impeachable.⁷⁹

Worse, the charges of alleged unexplained wealth in the Articles were not based on competent, relevant evidence, but on erroneous conclusions drawn by the Committee on Justice from documents pertaining to periods that fall outside the required impeachable-office-and-term standard set by the Supreme Court in Duterte.

In other words, the Committee on Justice recommended charges in the Articles by utilizing alleged information completely unrelated to any impeachable public office and term, in complete and deliberate disregard of controlling jurisprudence.

This same pattern pervades the allegations of purported impeachable offenses of political destabilization, high crimes, and sedition against the respondent. In disregard of the most basic principles of individual accountability, the Committee on

Aside from the lack of any evidentiary value to support the charges in the Articles, a deliberate and conscious effort on the part of the HOR and its Committee on Justice to conjure impeachable offenses beyond what the fundamental law allows and violative of the basic tenets of due process, is apparent.

Supposed evidence outside the Impeachment Complaints were considered and evaluated through an intentional fishing expedition. The body of evidence relied upon by the Committee on Justice consists largely of evidence extraneous to the Saballa and Cabrera Complaints, produced and made available with questionable convenience during the course of the mini-trial and presented therein only after the respondent had already filed her Answer, thereby depriving her of any opportunity to confront and address them.

While none of these purported evidence formed part of the Impeachment Complaints supposedly under consideration, they were nonetheless systematically produced during the committee hearings.

In fact, Madriaga’s Supplemental Affidavit was only adopted on the day of the hearing on April 14, 2026, when the respective sponsors of both Complaints, Rep. Abante and joined by Rep. De Lima, moved that it form part of said complaints.⁸⁰

Significantly, the convenient production of Madriaga’s Supplemental Affidavit was done after the respondent was already made to file her Answer to the impeachment complaints. Note that the respondent was not furnished with a copy of Madriaga’s supposed Supplemental Affidavit prior to its production and presentation and thus, was deprived of opportunity to address the same in her Answer.

This calculated intent to conduct a trawling excursion to obtain impermissible evidence and violate the respondent’s right to due process is further made evident when a video⁸¹ purportedly attributed to the respondent was “inadvertently” flashed during the proceedings and subsequently treated as part of the Saballa complaint only after a motion was made by Rep. De Lima in her capacity as endorser of the same.⁸² The same however was not part of the Supplemental Affidavit nor of either of the two impeachment complaints, yet nevertheless admitted as “evidence.”

The subsequent committee hearing conducted on April 22, 2026 revealed the continuing violations of the respondent’s rights and of other individuals whose private data were publicly disclosed without their consent and in a wanton manner despite the fact that they are not the subject of the proceedings, such as the

Again, none of these documents were furnished to the respondent prior to their public presentation during the hearing nor were any of them attached to the Impeachment Complaints that the respondent was made to answer. This deliberate omission shows the disregard for the constitutional rights of the respondent and of the fundamental guarantee that an individual be informed of the charges and evidence against him or her.

It is equally troubling that the Committee on Justice disclosed with reckless abandon confidential data of private individuals, without authority and in violation of existing laws on data privacy, bank secrecy, and AMLC disclosures.

The members of the Committee on Justice attempt to justify the unauthorized disclosure of confidential banking information by invoking the exception under the Bank Secrecy Law,⁸⁶ which supposedly includes "cases of impeachment" among the narrow exceptions to the rule of absolute confidentiality of bank deposits. This contention, however, is wrong.

The reason is simple: at the time of the questioned disclosures, no "impeachment case" existed and can exist at the level Committee on Justice precisely because its authority is limited to initiation of impeachment proceedings, and not to try an impeachment case.

In Francisco, Jr. v. House of Representatives, et al.,⁸⁷ the Supreme Court laid down the distinction between an "impeachment proceeding" and an "impeachment case."

It is thus clear that an impeachment case, in the strict sense, commences only upon the transmittal or endorsement of the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, which has the sole constitutional authority to try and decide the case. It

From the foregoing, it is apparent that there can never be an "impeachment case" before the Committee on Justice as its only authority under the Constitution is to initiate an impeachment "proceeding," which the Supreme Court already declared is not equivalent to an impeachment "case" precisely because the latter is within the sole prerogative of the Senate to try.

Thus, at the committee level, no "impeachment case" can exist as no Articles have yet been approved and/or transmitted to the Senate. It is only upon such transmittal that a "case of impeachment" arises in its constitutional and statutory sense, with the Senate possessing the sole power to try and decide the same. Until then, only an impeachment proceeding can occur and exist at the level of the HOR.

Equally unavailing is the Committee on Justice's position that the AMLC may disclose such information on the ground that it is not among the "covered persons" prohibited from disclosing bank records.

The Anti-Money Laundering Act⁹⁰ prohibits AMLC and its Secretariat from disclosing information known to them by reason of their office:

The AMLA provides for absolute prohibition. It imposes upon the AMLC and its Secretariat a direct and continuing obligation to protect and not reveal, in any manner, any information obtained by reason of their office. The language of the law thus reflects a legislative intent to ensure that financial intelligence information remains strictly confidential, except only in instances clearly sanctioned by law.

Likewise, the Committee on Justice itself denies that their proceedings constitute a trial. However, it cannot, on one hand, deny that a "case of impeachment" exists to insulate itself from constitutional constraints, while simultaneously invoking the very exception that presupposes the existence of such a case to justify the intrusion into confidential bank records.

By publicly presenting these extraneous evidence and conducting a one-sided "cross-examination," the Committee on Justice deprived the respondent of the basic requirements of due process and usurped the power to conduct trial,

In doing so, the Committee on Justice ceased to function as an impartial body and unlawfully assumed, without constitutional mandate, the conjoined roles of judge, prosecutor, and somehow, the executioner, all in one proceeding.

The Articles of Impeachment are the direct result of an impermissible fishing expedition. Having been obtained through constitutionally impermissible means, these alleged evidence must be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree and thus cannot serve as bases for impeachment.

It must be emphasized that the proceedings before the Committee on Justice is the third time the members of the HOR hunted for evidence against the respondent; the first and second instances being the congressional hearings on the 2025 budget where she was asked about the utilization of confidential funds for the year 2022 and 2023, and the second was the supposed hearings "in aid of legislation" before the Committee on Good Governance and Public Accountability.⁹²

Thus, beneath the feigned procedural formalities and claims of due process compliance, the proceedings conducted by the Committee on Justice was, in substance and deliberate design, a fishing expedition. It was a furtive attempt to dramatically build an impeachment case against the respondent.

The basic principle that a fishing expedition betrays the absence of evidence necessary to establish probable cause is not a novel concept but a doctrine long settled by the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Stonehill v. Diokno,⁹³ where the Court observed:

Here, it will be recalled that the Committee on Justice claims that its proceeding is allegedly akin to a preliminary investigation. Yet, the Committee on Justice conducted a proceeding where it actively sought additional testimonial and documentary evidence, which implies that the Saballa and Cabrera complaints, as originally filed, were not supported by sufficient evidence which will establish probable cause for any impeachable offense.

Grave constitutional issues pending before the Supreme Court. At present, constitutional issues relative to the impeachment proceedings and consequently, this impeachment case, are pending before the Supreme Court in G.R. No. E-05667. Said Petition raises constitutional questions that fundamentally affect the foundation of the Articles, as well as the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court.

In that Petition, the respondent raised the fatal defect in the referral process of the four Impeachment Complaints against her. Under settled jurisprudence, it is the HOR, acting in plenary and as a collective body, which should perform the constitutional task of referral of an impeachment complaint to the proper Committee within three session days from its inclusion in the Order of Business, and not a mere committee or any of its officers. This is clear from the ruling of the Supreme Court in Gutierrez:

The importance of this constitutional task of referral to the proper committee reposed in the HOR itself and not in any of its members alone is further emphasized in the Court's ruling in Duterte:⁹⁶

It is therefore plain that only the HOR, acting as a collective body in plenary session, can cause the proper transmittal of the impeachment complaints. No other person, entity, or committee is permitted by the Constitution to do this.

Here, the referral of the four impeachment complaints was not done by the HOR acting as a collective body in a public plenary session, but either by a mere committee or the Speaker alone.

Records and the video⁹⁸ of the February 23, 2026 plenary session of the HOR show that no such deliberation by the HOR as a collective body was conducted prior to the referral. Instead, the Additional Reference of Business concerning the four impeachment complaints was merely read, followed by a perfunctory striking of the gavel. Neither was there any voting done among the members of the House.

The House Bills/Resolutions⁹⁹ on these four impeachment complaints likewise indicate that it was the Committee on Rules that performed the act of referral to the Committee on Justice, and not the HOR, in violation of Section 3(2), Article XI of the Constitution and prevailing jurisprudence, which vest the authority to refer impeachment complaints in the HOR, acting as a collective body in a public plenary session, and not in any of its committees, members, or officers.

This fatal defect in the referral process is evident on the face of the Letter-Referral dated February 23, 2026 addressed to Rep. Luistro signed by its Deputy Secretary General. The Letter-Referral expressly states that the four impeachment complaints were referred by the Speaker to the Committee on Justice on even date.

Second, the Articles, whose foundation rest on the Saballa and Cabrera complaints, are proscribed by the One-Year Bar Rule.

The Constitution provides that "[n]o impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year."¹⁰⁰ As discussed in Duterte, this constitutional bar ensures that impeachable officers are not unduly disrupted or harassed in performing their duties.¹⁰¹

In determining the reckoning period of the One-Year Bar Rule, the Supreme Court explained that a nuanced approach is warranted to remain faithful to

Here, the Committee on Justice first approved the withdrawal of the Dee complaint upon the request of the complainants and its endorsing representatives.

Even at this point, the withdrawal of the Dee complaint should have precluded any further proceedings on the remaining impeachment complaints. This withdrawal of the Dee Complaint squarely falls within the ambit of the non-viability circumstance contemplated in Duterte that will trigger the One-Year Bar Rule.

Under these circumstances, acting on and sustaining the Saballa and Cabrera complaints render the proceedings before the Committee on Justice unconstitutional. The public broadcast of the proceedings conducted by the Committee on Justice shows that the Castro and Dee Complaints were (a) initiated upon their referral to the Committee on Justice, albeit defective, (b) partially acted upon since there were proceedings that caused the withdrawal of the Dee Complaint and distinct proceedings pertaining to the deliberations on and setting aside of the Castro Complaint for violation of the One-Year Bar rule, and (c) effectively terminated by confirmation of the withdrawal and through voting by the Committee members.

Hence, a fresh application of the One-Year Bar was triggered on March 2, 2026, the date when the Castro and Dee Complaints were respectively set aside and withdrawn. All these actions done in sequence show that multiple impeachment proceedings were initiated against the respondent within a one-year period – an act clearly proscribed under Section 3(5), Article XI of the Constitution.

Third, the Saballa and Cabrera complaints, upon which the entire proceedings before the Committee on Justice and the Articles are based, do not contain a recital of ultimate facts.

It is basic that a complaint must state only ultimate facts. This rule is embodied in Section 1, Rule 8 of the 2019 Revised Rules on Civil Procedure:

Section 5, Rule III of the Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Proceedings in the HOR requires the recital of ultimate facts:

Neither the Saballa nor Cabrera Complaints allege the essential or ultimate facts necessary to sustain the charges contained in the Articles. What abounds therein instead are bare conclusions of fact and law, laden with self-serving conjectures, logical fallacies, and speculations, none of which can substitute for clear statement of ultimate facts required to support an impeachment complaint.

It is also basic that jurisdiction over a subject matter is conferred by the Constitution or the law.¹⁰⁵ Article XI, Section 3(6) of the Constitution clothes the Senate with the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. The HOR simply has no power or authority to conduct any form of trial, let alone augment what otherwise were deficient impeachment complaints through production of "additional" evidence.

No impeachable offenses. Even assuming arguendo that this Honorable Court disregards the constitutional issues pervading the Articles above, the same must still be dismissed.

Under Section 2, Article XI of the Constitution, impeachment must be grounded on:

In Duterte, the Supreme Court ruled that decisions regarding whether to file Articles of Impeachment, or to acquit or convict must be based upon clear charges supported by clear and convincing evidence.¹⁰⁷ Thus, the impeachable offenses of (a) culpable violation of the Constitution, (b) treason, (c) bribery, (d) graft and corruption, (e) other high crimes, or (f) betrayal of public trust must all meet this standard.

The Articles accuse the respondent of:

The allegations in the Articles, however, and the alleged evidence that purport to support them, do not constitute any impeachable offenses.

The foregoing allegations are repleaded herein by reference.

No culpable violation of the Constitution. The respondent did not commit any culpable violation of the Constitution in connection with the confidential funds expenditures of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

Culpable violation of the Constitution demands something grave, willful, intentional, and deliberate breach of a constitutional duty. It thus should be understood to mean willful and intentional violation of the Constitution and not violations thereof that are committed unintentionally or involuntarily or in good faith or through honest mistake of judgment.¹¹² Thus, the act must be deliberate and motivated by bad faith to constitute a ground for impeachment. Mere mistakes on the construction of the

An examination of Article I reveals no substantial allegations of facts showing that the respondent violated any provision of the Constitution. The entirety of said Article rests solely upon Notices of Disallowances¹¹⁴ issued by the Commission on Audit, which are not yet final. Thus, any allegations premised on these NDs cannot be made to support a charge for culpable violation of the Constitution.

Even the purported documentary evidence used by the prosecutors to support this alleged impeachable offense point to the regular release and utilization of confidential funds; thus, dispelling the prosecution's insistence that the respondent committed an impeachable offense through the alleged misuse of confidential funds.

No graft and corruption. Neither is there any showing that the respondent committed graft and corruption in relation to the use of confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

As a ground for impeachment, allegations of graft and corruption must be measured against their definitions under Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.¹¹⁵ To constitute as an impeachable offense, the supposed conduct must be sufficiently alleged and proven to rise to a level of gravity with the other constitutional grounds for impeachment.

Under settled jurisprudence, graft is "the fraudulent obtaining of public money unlawfully by the corruption of public officers. It also refers to advantage or personal gain received because of the peculiar position or superior influence of one holding a position of trust and confidence without rendering compensatory services or dishonesty transaction in relation to public or official acts;"¹¹⁶ while corruption is defined as the act of an official or fiduciary person who unlawfully and wrongfully uses his station or charter to procure some benefit for himself or for another person, contrary to duty and the rights of others. It pertains to an act done with an intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others.¹¹⁷

Here, even the most basic elements of graft and corruption as defined above are entirely absent. In the first place, the allegation of graft and corruption cannot be sustained because the confidential funds were lawfully obtained upon the

Neither is there any personal gain which accrued in favor of the respondent. There is complete absence of any allegations in the Articles, much less proof, that respondent appropriated the confidential funds for her own benefit. It is basic that unwarranted conclusions, speculations, suspicions, and surmises cannot substitute for proof.

Even as a matter of record, the NDs issued by the COA contains no findings of any misuse or misappropriation of confidential funds by the respondent.

In fact, the allegations of misuse of confidential funds as foundation of the charge for graft and corruption have been directly refuted by the COA witness summoned by the Committee on Justice itself.

During her cross-examination by Rep. De Lima on April 14, 2026, Atty. Gloria Camora of the COA-Intelligence and Confidential Funds Office (COA-ICFAO) categorically stated that there was no such finding of misuse even in the COA Decision that was produced in seemingly perfect timing with the first day of the committee hearings. The exchange speaks for itself:

This fact on record drawn from the prosecution's own witness alone shows that the entire allegations of graft and corruption and misuse of confidential funds are not only strained conclusions by the members of the Committee on Justice but were borne out of pure bias against the respondent.

The brandishing of said COA Decision during the hearing on April 14, 2026 appears to have been timed well and conveniently produced, and even before the respondent and the other appellants in that COA Appeal could have received an official copy of the COA Decision on April 22, 2026. It is also interesting that this COA

The totality of these circumstances creates the impression that the impeachment proceedings that gave rise to the Articles were but an orchestrated performance designed to build an impeachment case against the respondent and impugn her reputation even before trial.

In addition, contrary to the misrepresentation in the Articles that the disallowance has been upheld with finality,¹²⁰ the respondent puts on record that said COA Decision is not final and thus, cannot constitute as proof of any impeachable offense on her part.

In fact, the respondent and the other appellants therein have available legal remedies to question that decision and ultimately, before the Supreme Court. As of date, a Motion for Reconsideration¹²¹ was timely filed by the respondent and her co-appellants with the COA En Banc. The presence of a remedy for the disallowance was confirmed by the Committee on Justice's own witness, Atty. Gloria A. Camora:

Under the circumstances where efforts to impeach the respondent have been relentless for the second consecutive year now, a denial of that Motion for Reconsideration does not ripen the COA Decision into a final judgment as she can still elevate any such denial to the Supreme Court via Rule 65 in relation to Rule 64 of the Rules of Court.

Neither does the so-called crying testimony of Ramil Madriaga¹²³ nor of his two alleged affidavits carry any persuasive nor probative value. The glaring inconsistencies in his testimony coupled with emotional performance of a person whom news reports¹²⁴ tag as the leader of a notorious kidnap-for-ransom gang "deemed to be ‘one of the most dangerous criminal syndicates in recent history’"¹²⁵ certainly do not establish any impeachable offenses for which the respondent may be held liable.

It is a legal truism that evidence to be believed and considered must not only proceed from the mouth of a credible witness, but must be credible in itself.¹²⁶ No better test has yet been found to measure the value of a witness' testimony than its conformity to the knowledge and common experience of mankind.¹²⁷

Here, Madriaga himself admitted in the last paragraph of his Supplemental Affidavit¹²⁸ that he bears a grudge against the respondent for supposedly failing to come to his aid in relation to the kidnapping-for-ransom case that he is now detained for:

The outright lies that Madriaga peddled in his two affidavits, which the Committee on Justice took hook, line, and sinker, are apparent on the face of his sworn statements. These lies are now the subject of a perjury complaint filed against him by the respondent on March 4, 2026 before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Taguig City.¹³⁰

Likewise, the prosecution used the supposed records of hearings before the CGGPA the very first orchestrated "hearing" against the respondent in 2024 as a prelude to its failed 2025 impeachment effort.

What the Articles of Impeachment however failed to allege is that those records are replete with all badges of intimidation of witnesses through compulsion of testimonies, misleading questions, refusal to accept the witness' answers that do not conform to their desired response, and worse, threats to cite them in contempt, which they actually did to the respondent's Chief of Staff, Atty. Zuleika T. Lopez.¹³¹

Those supposed records of the CGGPA hearings certainly do not contain reliable "findings" of liabilities on the part of the respondent since at the time of those hearings and to date, the supposed COA observations have not yet attained finality.

Those hearings were in every sense a public display of modern-day persecution and wielding of power by those who controlled those hearings, a number of those are still the same members of the Congress who sat in proceedings this year before the Committee on Justice.

Certainly, a supposed "record" produced through fear, coercion, and suppression of honest testimony is not evidence. Rather, it is a testament to the lengths that the respondents' accusers are willing to take to indict her. If at all, when her accusers resort to intimidation and threats to build their case, the same demonstrably indicates the plain absence of any genuine, competent, and credible evidence against the respondent.

The Articles also rely on the purported fabrications allegedly uncovered by the National Bureau of Investigation¹³² on the documents evidencing payment (DEPs) and supposedly compounded by the certifications issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority,¹³³ which are conjectural at best, and mere conclusions.

These supposed findings betray a total failure to understand the very nature of confidential expenses and activities, which under the Joint Circular, are classified, pertaining or related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.¹³⁴

Simply put, confidential operations and expenditures, by their very nature and the legal framework governing them, are not subject to ordinary documentary requirements applicable to regular and non-confidential government transactions. Yet here, both the NBI and the PSA allowed themselves to be conscripted into a predetermined narrative designed to float supposedly adverse findings on the transactions in connection with the confidential operations of the OVP and DepEd.

Worse, the treatment by the Committee on Justice on the Letter¹³⁵ written by Atty. Zuleika T. Lopez¹³⁶ is a distortion of its true import. In truth, the Letter did nothing more than set forth the legal bases of the OVP's position in respect of the Subpoena issued to the COA given that the audit was still ongoing at that time and the confidentiality of those records. The Letter dated August 21, 2024 reads as:

Moreover, it was clearly an exercise of an honest discretion and good faith intention to invoke and uphold relevant legal principles and provisions of law, which every lawyer is duty-bound to do.¹³⁷

No betrayal of public trust. Under these circumstances, there is likewise no betrayal of public trust attributable to the respondent. While betrayal of public trust as a ground for impeachment may cover all manner of offenses unbecoming of a public functionary but not punishable by the criminal statutes, like "inexcusable negligence, tyrannical abuse of authority, breach of official duty by malfeasance or, misfeasance, cronyism, favoritism, obstruction of justice,"¹³⁸ nothing in the Articles allege any specific such acts or omissions within the ambit of this ground.

Betrayal of public trust cannot be treated as a carte blanche ground for impeachment but should be limited to the most serious nature, otherwise it would subject impeachable officers to frivolous charges. As shown above, the charges against the respondent are precisely the kind of accusations that this limitation was designed to guard against. The allegations in the Articles simply do not rise to the level of this impeachable offense.

The foregoing allegations are repleaded herein by reference.

No culpable violation of the Constitution. The Articles allege that the respondent amassed wealth manifestly disproportionate to her lawful income and earnings, failed to fully and truthfully disclose all her assets, liabilities, and net worth, and failed to divest her business interests. It is claimed that these violate the Constitution's requirement for public officials to disclose their assets, liabilities, and net worth.

These are, however, not statements of ultimate facts but of bare conclusions. Even more absurd is the allegation in the Articles that discussed respondent's SALNs pertaining to non-impeachable offices¹³⁹ when she served as Vice Mayor of Davao City from 2007 to 2009, and subsequently, as Mayor of Davao City from 2010 to 2021,¹⁴⁰ in an attempt to support the accusations of supposed unexplained wealth of the respondent.

Moreover, assets and net worth of her spouse, Atty. Manases Carpio,¹⁴¹ who is a private citizen and thus, not an impeachable official, were likewise lumped with the respondent's supposed unexplained wealth to bloat her total net worth in an

Driven by its desire to impeach the respondent and generate adverse public opinion against her even before this case could even reach this Impeachment Court, the prosecution used purported AMLC reports on supposed covered transactions and suspicious transactions on the respondent and her spouse to paint a false financial picture.

This deliberate attempt to manufacture an illusion of supposed staggering, unexplained wealth where none actually exists, by deliberately conjuring a bloated amount of purported total transactions and without the proper interpretation of these alleged data is simply reckless, irresponsible, and goes against the principles of accountability that the respondent's accusers purport to champion.

Yet, both the Committee on Justice and the Articles omitted to explain the legal concepts of covered and suspicious transactions. A covered transaction is defined as "a transaction in cash or other equivalent monetary instrument involving a total amount in excess of Five hundred thousand pesos (₱500,000.00) within one (1) banking day,"¹⁴² while suspicious transactions are those transactions with covered institutions, regardless of the amounts involved,¹⁴³ where certain circumstances are involved.

By their definition alone, assuming arguendo that the AMLC reports were accurate, the Articles nonetheless failed to allege any supposed "unexplained wealth" on the part of the respondent, precisely because even at this point, they could not specify nor prove any.

Even the AMLC Director who appeared before the Committee on Justice hearing on April 22, 2026 did not point out to any supposed violations of law committed by the respondent in relation to those purported transactions. What is clear is that the respondent was not investigated or prosecuted for any violation of the AMLA. In fact, a perusal of the reports shows that the bases for those alleged reports were the supposed hearings conducted by the QuadComm in 2024.

Assuming further without conceding that the inflow and outflow transactions presented by AMLC are correct, the same were obviously intentionally misrepresented and taken out of context to paint a false picture of the respondent's and her spouse's finances. Considering too that the disclosure by the AMLC of these supposed data is prohibited under the law, the respondent maintains her objection to the use of those reports and reserves her right to challenge it at the proper time.

Neither can the false claims of former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV¹⁴⁴ be given any probative value. By the very nature of his supposed testimony, Trillanes