Even with the current oil crisis as a consequence of the US-Israel-Iran war, our government instrumentalities function as usual such that the House Justice Committee was not impeded in proceeding with the hearing on the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio after the committee found the complaint to be sufficient in grounds.
The camp of VP Sara filed the answer raising the issue of due process because, according to her lawyers, the standards for determining sufficiency in form and substance have not been uniform in the impeachment complaint against President BBM and the impeachment complaints against the Vice President.
Among the allegations against VP Sara were her alleged misuse of confidential funds and her supposed threat against President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, the Speaker of the House at the time of her remarks.
In her answer “ad cautilam” (with caution), VP Sara asked the House justice panel to dismiss the impeachment complaints against her, stating that the allegations against her were not impeachable offenses and they don’t see the need to answer the complaint, as it did not state the “ultimate facts” that would support the allegations against her.
“The impeachment complaints brazenly accuse the Vice President of entering a supposed ‘contract to kill’ yet they fail to present any shred of proof that any such contract ever existed,” the reply read.
But the House Justice Committee, after the House Prosecution filed their reply to VP Sara’s answer, has determined that her answer lacked substance and did not adequately address the allegations against her, prompting the committee to proceed with a “mini-impeachment trial.”
So, the question now that hangs in the balance is: Should VP Sara attend this “mini-impeachment trial” at the House Justice Committee and provide the committee with the documents that were asked of from her?
The lawyers of VP Sara can argue that she is not legally bound to attend the initiatory hearings and they are perhaps technically correct. At this stage, the House Justice Committee has required the complainants to present their witnesses and evidence in support of the impeachment complaints and for respondent VP Sara to present her side if she does so.
According to the House Justice Committee Chair Gerville Luistro, VP Sara can opt to attend or not during the “mini-impeachment trial.” It is her prerogative, she said. The hearing is only to determine the evidence of the complainants as well as the respondents. It is not yet a trial. There is no summons yet, no compulsion, no immediate penalty for absence.
But public office — especially one as high as the Vice Presidency — was never meant to be governed by technicalities alone.
Impeachment is not an ordinary proceeding. It is the Constitution’s sharpest tool for enforcing accountability against those entrusted with the highest powers of the State. It is political in character and moral in expectation. And the first test of that expectation is simple: when called to account, do you show up?
To refuse attendance is to hide behind a narrow reading of the law while ignoring its larger spirit. The Constitution does not prohibit her from appearing. It does not silence her. It does not bar her from confronting the accusations early, directly and on her own terms. If anything, it gives her the space to do exactly that.
By not attending, she yields that ground.
VP Sara allows the narrative to be written without her voice. She permits her accusers to define the facts uncontested. She sends a message — intended or not — that engagement is optional when scrutiny becomes uncomfortable.
This is a dangerous precedent. Because if the Vice President can simply decline to face an impeachment inquiry at its earliest stage, what stops future officials from doing the same? What becomes of transparency if accountability can be postponed until it is legally unavoidable? What signal does that send to the public, already weary of institutions that seem to answer only when forced?
Showing up is not about conceding guilt. It is about asserting confidence. It is the opportunity to say: Here are the facts. Here is my side. Here is why this complaint should not even move forward. It is the chance to dismantle the case before it gathers political momentum. In many ways, the initiatory hearing is not a risk — it is an opening.
Declining that opening is not a legal strategy. It is a political gamble. And it is one that rarely pays off.
The House Justice Committee will proceed with or without her. The process will move. The complaint will either die or advance. But in her absence, every development will carry the quiet but persistent question: Why didn’t she face it when she could have?
In public life, perception is not everything — but it is never nothing. At a time when trust in institutions is fragile, leaders do not strengthen democracy by doing only what the law strictly requires. They strengthen it by meeting scrutiny head-on, even when they could legally avoid it.
So yes, she may not be compelled to attend. But she should. Because accountability delayed is accountability diminished. And in the court of public judgment — where impeachment ultimately draws its force — showing up is not just advisable. It is essential.