Your excellency, Chief Justice, members of this honourable Court, Good afternoon.

My name is Patrick V. Arcellana, together with my co-counsel Richard Uy. We

respectfully enter our appearances on behalf of the respondent, Office of the
Ombudsman.
I would like to reserve 10 minutes of this courts time for my submissions and
another 10 minutes for my co-counsels submissions.
*If there are no preliminary questions, I will now proceed to our first argument.
Petitioners submit that (III). We respectfully submit otherwise. Respondent submits
that the Vice President need not be impeached first before being prosecuted
criminally.
Impeachment different from criminal proceeding
First, it is enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution that public office is indeed a
public trust. The Constitution affords protection to the citizens by imposing a higher
responsibility to our Public Officers. It demands from such officers integrity, loyalty
and efficiency in governing our country and they must at all times be accountable
for their duties.
The vice president is one of the impeachable officials stated in Constitution. As
such, removal from office could only be obtained with the proper impeachment
proceedings. This means that only through the process of impeachment can the
Vice-President step down. Impeachment in the Philippines is a constitutional process
of removing public servants from office as an assurance against abusive officials 1.
This is different from a criminal punishment and serves only to provide protection to
the state for these erring officials. The process is to determine if such officers are
still worthy of the trust given to them by the people. 2
In this proceeding, there are two ways to go about it. One is for a citizen endorsed
by a member of the House a member of the House to the Committee of Justice
which will be tasked to determine the complaints sufficiency in form and substance.
This committee may then recommend to the entire House the impeachment of the
respondent upon 1/3 vote of the members of the House.
The second is for 1/3 of all House members to file the verified complaint. In this
process, the complaint shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment and as such, the
trial by the Senate shall proceed. It is then decided by 2/3 vote of the House that an
official can be convicted for impeachment. In this way, it is ensured that the voice of
the people are heard through their representatives. The rationale being that they
are the officials that have the highest trust in them.
1 GOVPH. A primer on Impeachment, available at http://www.gov.ph/interactive-a-primer-onimpeachment/, July 6 2015

2 Id.

One of the grounds for impeachment is graft and corruption. This is defined when a
public officer is found to have acquired in his name or of other persons, an amount
of property/money out of proportion to his salary. Now VP Binay is alleged to commit
this ground together with a case of Plunder because of the alleged overpricing of
the Makati City hall parking. The building was overpriced by about 1 billion pesos,
the quality of work was less than adequate and the materials used were not of
standard quality. These all constitute probable cause for the House to initiate
impeachment proceedings, but we submit that impeachment is not needed before
prosecuting.
There is a substantial difference between the two proceedings. Again impeachment
is about removing an impeachable official from office while a criminal proceeding is
a process of punishing a criminal for violation of law by imprisonment or paying a
fine. The quantum of evidence is also different as criminal proceedings require proof
beyond reasonable doubt and impeachment requires varying quantum for different
members of the Senate.
No immunity
Also, the VP can be proceeded with criminally because he has no immunity from
suit. It is stated that only the President, by jurisprudence, is granted immunity from
suit. The rationale being that he is the one handling the affairs of the government
and is relied upon to make sensitive decisions affecting the nations. His duty and
responsibility must not hampered with by any litigation as it could affect the
operations of government. Because of the multifarious activities of the President,
immunity from suit must be given to him. The same cannot be said to the VP which
only fulfills basically two duties: to be a possible member of the Cabinet, and more
importantly, as a substitute for the President in case death, removal from office,
resignation or permanent disability befalls upon him. 3 In this case, even though VP
Binay is an impeachable officer, a criminal case could be filed to him in connection
with his acts when he was still mayor, specifically those alleged relating to the
overpriced parking building in Makati.
Criminal actions could also be initiated by filing of an information. Such filing of
information is not tantamount to a punishment of removal from office and it is still
at the discretion of the courts whether such complaint would merit such
punishment4.
International History
History is also rich in showing that Vice-Presidents can be prosecuted criminally. The
case of Aaron Burr back in the 1800s is where a Vice-President was held for charges
3 PHIL. CONST. art. 7, 7
4 Rey E. Requejo, Binay can be sued, De Lima now says, The Standard, available at
http://manilastandardtoday.com/mobile/2015/07/09/binay-can-be-sued-de-lima-now-says,
July 11 2015

of Murder for killing his political rival in a gun duel. Another case is the Boudougate
Scandal, which involves Vice-President Amando Boudou of Argentina. It is alleged
that Boudou exercised corruption over a printing firm, Ciccone Calcogrfica, which is
a firm that prints banknotes. Right now the Vice-President is appearing in court as
defendant in these allegations. These cases show that such official does not enjoy
the immunity from suit if faced with such criminal allegations.
The nature of their office internationally does not differ substantially from the
office of the Vice-President here in the Philippines. And so because of the lack of
national importance and no burden of engaging in sensitive decisions for the benefit
of the country, it cannot be contemplated that the Vice-President, in this case VP
Binay could invoke immunity from suit.