Duterte allies seek Supreme Court block of VP Sara impeachment trial

On Tuesday, February 18, a group of lawyers with ties to former president Rodrigo Duterte filed a petition at the Supreme Court seeking to halt the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte before it could begin. The filing, led by Martin Delgra—a former chief of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board—and Israelito Torreon, a counsel to religious leader Apollo Quiboloy, represented a legal counterattack against what had already become a historic moment: the first impeachment of a sitting Philippine vice president.

The House of Representatives had voted to impeach Duterte on February 5, with 240 lawmakers signing the petition. The charges centered on her office's handling of confidential funds. Now, with the trial set to move to the Senate, where senators would serve as judges, Duterte's allies moved to block the proceedings entirely by arguing the impeachment articles themselves were constitutionally defective. The petition requested not only a review of the articles but also a temporary restraining order that could freeze the trial in place.

Torreon and his co-petitioners—27 in total—made three central arguments about what they called constitutional infirmities in the impeachment complaint. First, they contended that the House had ignored three earlier impeachment complaints filed against the Vice President. Second, they claimed the process violated her right to due process. Third, and most pointedly, they attacked the verification process itself. Under the Constitution, each lawmaker who signs an impeachment petition must personally know and have studied the allegations. Torreon told reporters he believed many of the 240 signatories had never actually read the complaint or reviewed the evidence attached to it. "We feel and we have reasons to believe that some of the congressmen were not even able to peruse the complaint as well as assess the evidences attached," he said.

The timing of the petition created a peculiar legal standoff. The Senate, which would conduct the actual trial, had not yet scheduled proceedings. Senate President Francis Escudero had indicated the chamber would likely not constitute itself as an impeachment court until after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his State of the Nation Address in July. The delay, Escudero explained, was partly because at least seven senators were running for reelection and the Senate would not hold impeachment proceedings during its congressional break. This meant that even if the Supreme Court rejected the Duterte allies' petition, the trial itself remained months away.

Yet another legal motion was already in motion. On February 15, Catalino Generillo Jr., a former special counsel to the Presidential Commission on Good Government, had filed his own Supreme Court petition—this one pushing in the opposite direction. Generillo asked the High Court to order the Senate to immediately convene as an impeachment court and begin Duterte's trial, citing the Constitution's use of the word "forthwith" to describe the Senate's obligation to act. The Supreme Court spokesperson confirmed that Generillo's petition had been assigned and would likely appear on the court's agenda alongside the Duterte allies' filing.

When asked how confident he was that the Supreme Court would grant his petition, Torreon offered a measured response: "It's up to the Supreme Court but we pray that the Supreme Court will grant our prayers." The High Court now held the power to shape the trajectory of an unprecedented constitutional crisis—whether to allow the trial to proceed, to block it on technical grounds, or to force the Senate's hand in beginning proceedings immediately. The justices' decision would determine not only the fate of the Vice President but also the boundaries of impeachment itself in the Philippine system.