Pres. Bongbong Marcos Asserts SC Ruling No Bearing on Merits of Duterte’s Impeachment Case
BONGBONG MARCOS – The President broke his silence on the ruling of the Supreme Court over the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte.
For several times, Malacañang stressed that Pres. Marcos will not intervene in the impeachment case against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. Marcos Jr. himself also claimed that he did not want the impeachment from the start. However, the Duterte camp also believes that the Marcos administration wants her removed from office.
In an interview, Vice Pres. Sara Duterte even claimed that she is allegedly the frontrunner in the 2028 Presidential Elections so the Marcos admin wants to get rid of her. The deepening rift between Duterte and Marcos Jr. is not secret to the public anymore.
Pres. Bongbong Marcos and Vice Pres. Sara Duterte have once united their supporters during the 2022 Elections when they ran as running mates but their ties did not last long enough. According to the Vice President, she left the Marcos Cabinet for both personal and work reasons.
Last February, Vice Pres. Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives. Presidential son and Ilocos Norte First District Representative Sandro Marcos was one of those who signed the impeachment rap against his father’s former running mate. The complaint was transmitted to the Senate.
Petitions seeking for the dismissal of the impeachment complaint against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte were also filed before the Supreme Court. Prior to the opening of the 20th Congress, the Supreme Court declared the Articles of Impeachment against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte as “unconstitutional”. According to the court, it did not abide the one-year rule in the Constitution.
Recently, Pres. Bongbong Marcos broke his silence on the ruling of the Supreme Court over the impeachment complaint against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. Based on a report on ABS-CBN News, the Chief Executive clarified that the decision was about the procedure and not whether the accusations were right or wrong.
“We have to make very, very clear to everyone that the Supreme Court decision does not have any bearing on the rightness or wrongness in the impeachment case. Accountability doesn’t come into it here,” Marcos Jr. said.
Furthermore, based on the report, Pres. Bongbong Marcos stressed that the high court did not examined the merits of the case against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. Meanwhile, the President clarified that he did not instruct any of his allies in the Congress over the case as he refuses to intervene.
“The merits of the case were not examined by the Supreme Court. This does not decide the merits of the case. It just talked about the procedure,” the President expressed.
Recently, the Senate voted to archive the impeachment case against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte. Duterte known-ally Sen. Robin Padilla admitted that while he voted for the archiving of Vice Pres. Sara Duterte’s impeachment case, he really wants its dismissal.