THE Palace said Sunday there is no need for Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista to go through an impeachment trial because President Rodrigo Duterte has already accepted his resignation.
“The goal of impeachment is to remove an official from office, but if the President has approved his resignation, there will no longer be an official to remove,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said in Filipino on radio dzBB.
Duterte on Friday accepted Bautista’s resignation after the House of Representatives voted to impeach the Comelec chief.
The “legal consequence” of accepting Bautista’s resignation is that he can be replaced anytime even though his resignation will be effective by the end of the year, Panelo said.
“Bautista said it just the other day, I will leave it to the judgement of the President,” Panelo said.
The Senate, sitting as an impeachment tribunal, may begin its trial of Bautista by the last week of November, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said.
Sotto said that the Senate will prepare for an impeachment trial once the articles of impeachment are forwarded to them by the House of Representatives.
At least four articles of impeachment were proposed by Deputy Minority Leader and Kabayan party-list Representative Harry Roque.
He submitted the draft of the articles of impeachment to the House Committee on Justice.
All articles of impeachment support Bautista’s impeachment for graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.
But Sotto also said there is no need for a trial because Duterte has accepted Bautista’s resignation.
Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said some of his colleagues consider an impeachment trial against Bautista as “moot.”
“I can’t speak for my colleagues right now but I think it will be moot for a lot of us,” Angara told radio dzMM.
“The way I see it, as a practical matter, the senators don’t want to go there. If he resigns, I think most senators will say let’s not push through with the hearing,” he added.
Angara, who was a prosecution spokesman in the impeachment case of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, said an impeachment hearing is an “extraordinary process” that should not be used often.