FRANCISCO V.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

To determine the merits of the issues raised in the instant petitions, this Court must necessarily turn to the Constitution itself which
employs the well-settled principles of constitutional construction.

1. Verba legis
- possible, the words used in the Constitution must be given their ordinary meaning except where
technical terms are employed
- We look to the language of the document itself in our search for its meaning. We do not of
course stop there, but that is where we begin. It is to be assumed that the words in which
constitutional provisions are couched express the objective sought to be attained. They are
to be given their ordinary meaning except where technical terms are employed in which
case the significance thus attached to them prevails.

2. Ratio legis est anima

- The words of the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with the intent of its framers
- The object is to ascertain the reason which induced the framers of the Constitution to enact
the particular provision and the purpose sought to be accomplished thereby, in order to
construe the whole as to make the words consonant to that reason and calculated to effect
that purpose

3. Ut magis valeat quam pereat

- The Constitution is to be interpreted as a whole
- …A provision should function to the full extent of its substance and its terms, not by itself
alone, but in conjunction with all other provisions of that great document
- It is a well-established rule in constitutional construction that no one provision of the
Constitution is to be separated from all the others, to be considered alone, but that all the
provisions bearing upon a particular subject are to be brought into view and to be so
interpreted as to effectuate the great purposes of the instrument. Sections bearing on a
particular subject should be considered and interpreted together as to effectuate the whole
purpose of the Constitution and one section is not to be allowed to defeat another, if by any
reasonable construction, the two can be made to stand together.

THE ISSUE:
WON the House of Representatives violated the one year bar rule in filing the second impeachment complaint against CJ Davide

The resolution of this issue thus hinges on the interpretation of the term "initiate."

- The resolution of this issue thus hinges on the interpretation of the term "initiate."\
- The act of "initiating" includes the act of taking initial action on the complaint, dissipates any doubt
that indeed the word "initiate" means to file the complaint and take initial action on it
- "Initiate" of course is understood by ordinary men to mean, as dictionaries do, to begin, to
commence, or set going. As Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language
concisely puts it, it means "to perform or facilitate the first action,"
Amici curiae
- impeachment is "deemed initiated" when the Justice Committee votes in favor of impeachment or
when the House reverses a contrary vote of the Committee. Note that the Rule does not say
"impeachment proceedings" are initiated but rather are "deemed initiated." The language is
recognition that initiation happened earlier, but by legal fiction there is an attempt to postpone it to
a time after actual initiation.
Maambong
- The procedure, as I have pointed out earlier, was that the initiation starts with the filing of
the complaint. And what is actually done on the floor is that the committee resolution
containing the Articles of Impeachment is the one approved by the body.
- It is not the body which initiates it. It only approves or disapproves the resolution.

Section 3 (1) The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.

- An impeachment case is the legal controversy that must be decided by the Senate. Above-quoted
first provision provides that the House, by a vote of one-third of all its members, can bring a case to
the Senate. It is in that sense that the House has "exclusive power" to initiate all cases of
impeachment. No other body can do it. However, before a decision is made to initiate a case in the
Senate, a "proceeding" must be followed to arrive at a conclusion. A proceeding must be
"initiated." To initiate, which comes from the Latin word initium, means to begin.

(5) No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one
year, (Emphasis supplied)

- proceeding is a progressive noun. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It takes place not in
the Senate but in the House and consists of several steps:

1. (1) there is the filing of a verified complaint either by a Member of the House of
Representatives or by a private citizen endorsed by a Member of the House of the
Representatives;

2. (2) there is the processing of this complaint by the proper Committee which may either reject
the complaint or uphold it;

3. (3) whether the resolution of the Committee rejects or upholds the complaint, the resolution
must be forwarded to the House for further processing; and

4. (4) there is the processing of the same complaint by the House of Representatives which
either affirms a favorable resolution of the Committee or overrides a contrary resolution by a
vote of one-third of all the members.

o If at least one third of all the Members upholds the complaint, Articles of Impeachment are prepared and
transmitted to the Senate. It is at this point that the House "initiates an impeachment case." It is at this
point that an impeachable public official is successfully impeached. That is, he or she is successfully
charged with an impeachment "case" before the Senate as impeachment court