House Deputy Minority Leader Rep. Leila de Lima, on Monday, Feb. 9, endorsed the third impeachment complaint filed against Vice President Sara Duterte at the House of Representatives.
With voluminous paperwork in tow, a group of priests, nuns, and Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP)-led by their counsel, lawyer Amando Virgil Ligutan—trooped to the office of House Secretary General Cheloy Garafil to lodge their complaint.
The 98-page document, endorsed by De Lima, was marked received by Garafil just past noon.
This was not Ligutan’s first rodeo: he was also behind one of the three impeachment complaints filed against Vice President Duterte in December 2024, during the first collective attempt to impeach her at the tail end of the previous 19th Congress.
“Here we go again,” said the lawyer following the filing.
With Monday morning’s development, all three group impeachment filers from the 19th Congress have already lodged fresh complaints against the second highest official of the land.
Last Feb. 2, a group of 45 activists and former Makabayan bloc solons filed the first impeachment complaint against the sitting Vice President in the current 20th Congress. Their feat was followed minutes later by 17 civil society and religious group members.
Incumbent Makabayan bloc solons ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co endorsed the first complaint, while De Lima and Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña endorsed the second.
The Ligutan complaint is significant—and possibly strategic—because it is the first rap to be filed after the Feb. 5 reckoning date initially mentioned by the Supreme Court (SC).
The reckoning date is determined by the one-year bar rule on the filing of impeachment complaints against impeachable officers, who in this case is the Vice President.
The high court had earlier declared as unconstitutional the fourth complaint that was pursued against Duterte via one-third vote in House plenary last year. All three previous complaints were archived.
The Makabayan and De Lima/ Cendaña-backed complaints were filed on the premise that the reckoning date came earlier on Jan. 14, based on the SC’s second ruling on the defeated impeachment case.
The SC has yet to clarify which reckoning date would be followed. (Ellson Quismorio)
