THE impeachment proceedings now underway in the House Committee on Justice may wrap up by the end of May even as the body continues to tackle questions over probable cause and the fairness of the process involving Vice President Sara Z. Duterte.
San Juan Rep. Ysabel Maria Zamora, vice chair of the House Committee on Justice, over the weekend gave that estimate when asked how long the House hearings may run at the most.
“From the time of the initiation or referral to the Committee on Justice, it’s 60 session days. So our estimate is, if I’m not mistaken, mga end of May,” Zamora said during the Saturday News Forum at Dapo Restaurant in Quezon City.
The timeframe matters because the committee is working through a politically charged case while also trying to show that its members are approaching the proceedings without bias against the vice president, despite public criticism and the intense national attention surrounding the complaint.
On that point, Zamora stressed that confidence in the numbers inside the committee should not be read as proof of prejudice, but as a reflection of how lawmakers assessed the complaints, the annexes, and the threshold issues already taken up by the panel.
“The Congressmen have read the complaints, and they believe that we are correct in declaring it to be sufficient in form, sufficient in substance, and that the affidavits or the annexes to the complaints are sufficient to show that there is probable cause. Of course, like we said, we will still have to go through the Committee on Justice hearing to declare probable cause,” Zamora explained.
She then made clear that having the numbers does not mean the committee has already closed the case or pre-judged the outcome, because the process still has to move through hearings where the panel must formally determine whether probable cause exists before any recommendation can advance.
So ayun po, ang tanong po kanina ay kung mayroon tayong mga numero. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, I acknowledge that some congressmen, or perhaps many, have qualms and concerns. But people still believe in the charges. So ‘yan po,” Zamora noted.
