By Ivy Tejano
DAVAO CITY – The petitioners challenging the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte returned to the Supreme Court of the Philippines, questioning what they described as grave abuse of discretion on the April 14 hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Justice.
In a Manifestation with Prayer filed in G.R. No. E-05546, the petitioners—led by Israelito P. Torreon, Resci Rizada-Nolasco, and Jimmy Bondoc—argued that the committee structured its proceedings around the testimony of Ramil Madriaga and his supplemental affidavit.
Madriaga is a suspected leader of a kidnap-for-ransom group who claimed he was a former aide to the Dutertes. Petitioners claimed that the proceedings regarding Madriaga’s recent testimony were not part of the original impeachment complaints filed with and referred to the panel.
According to the petitioners, the only affidavit initially available to the committee was Madriaga’s November 29, 2025, statement. They said the supplemental affidavit introduced new allegations, additional factual claims, and expanded narratives beyond the complaints.
“What was presented introduced entirely new accusations and narratives beyond what respondents were notified of,” the petitioners said.
Despite this, the petitioners said, lawmakers allegedly questioned Madriaga as if those matters had long formed part of the official record.
They contended that the supplemental affidavit went beyond clarifying existing allegations and instead relied on later-submitted material as a broader factual basis for the proceedings.
Petitioners argued that this approach violated principles of notice, fairness, due process, and orderly pleading.
They also questioned the committee’s approval of a subpoena for former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, saying it was based solely on a footnote in the Saballa complaint that cited an April 4, 2016, news article about Trillanes’ public accusations on alleged bank accounts linked to the Duterte family.
The petitioners argued that the cited report was neither a sworn statement nor competent proof of the claims it described.
The filing further challenged a motion directing the Anti-Money Laundering Council to produce reports and documents on alleged covered and suspicious transactions involving the Vice President and Manases Carpio from 2006 to 2025.
Petitioners argued that the directive was not anchored on specific allegations of ultimate fact concerning supposed unexplained wealth, but instead amounted to a broad search for evidence beyond the scope of the complaints.
They added that the committee could not circumvent safeguards under the Anti-Money Laundering Act and bank secrecy laws through a legislative directive alone.
According to the petitioners, such a move would effectively allow investigators to gather new material outside the four corners of the impeachment complaints.
The petitioners maintained that developments during the April 14 hearing indicated that the proceedings had shifted from a threshold review of sufficiency in substance to what they described as a “fishing expedition” for new material, narratives, and accusations intended to support a case they claimed was constitutionally deficient.
