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 proceedingFirst, 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[footnoteRef: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.[footnoteRef:2] [1: GOVPH. A primer on Impeachment, available at http://www.gov.ph/interactive-a-primer-on-impeachment/, July 6 2015] [2: Id.]

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. 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.[footnoteRef: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. [3: Phil. Const. art. 7, 7]

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 punishment[footnoteRef:4]. [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]

International HistoryHistory 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 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.