Photo credit: Sara Duterte

A former law dean is pushing back hard against efforts to drag lawmakers into court over their role in the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte—saying the law is being twisted in a way it was never meant to be used.

Mel Sta. Maria, former dean of the Far Eastern University law school, said the House Committee on Justice is simply doing its constitutional duty and should not be held liable under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) or the Data Privacy Act.

His remarks came after a criminal complaint was filed by Duterte’s husband, Manases Carpio, against members of the committee.

Sta. Maria laid out multiple reasons why the complaint, in his view, doesn’t hold up legally. At the center of his argument is a basic principle: the Constitution sits at the top of the legal hierarchy.

He explained that no ordinary law—including AMLA—can override a constitutional mandate like impeachment. “The Constitution is the supreme law of the land,” he said, stressing that all statutes must follow its lead, not the other way around.

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives has the exclusive power to initiate impeachment cases. Sta. Maria described impeachment as a unique process—one created by the Constitution itself to hold the highest officials accountable.

He added that even the Supreme Court of the Philippines recognizes impeachment as both a legal and political process designed to protect the public from wrongdoing at the highest levels.

For Sta. Maria, allowing laws like AMLA to block impeachment proceedings would flip the legal system upside down.

He also defended the committee’s authority to issue subpoenas, including requests for financial records. According to him, when lawmakers do this in the context of impeachment, they are not acting as ordinary investigators but as a body exercising a sovereign constitutional function.

Even if there were technical missteps, Sta. Maria argued these should not automatically translate into criminal liability. He said actions taken in pursuit of a higher constitutional goal—like accountability—can override minor procedural issues.

He pointed to the principle that “public office is a public trust,” saying it should take precedence over concerns about how data was handled during hearings.

To drive the point home, Sta. Maria cited a Supreme Court ruling that allowed constitutional rights to prevail over statutory law, arguing that if exceptions can be made for individual rights, then all the more for a national process like impeachment.

He also warned of a “chilling effect” if lawmakers are constantly threatened with lawsuits for doing their jobs. That, he said, could weaken Congress’ ability to investigate corruption and render impeachment powers meaningless.

At its core, Sta. Maria emphasized, AMLA was created to go after money laundering—not to protect public officials from scrutiny.

Meanwhile, during an April 22 hearing, the Anti-Money Laundering Council disclosed that bank accounts linked to Duterte and her husband were flagged for ₱6.77 billion in covered and suspicious transactions dating back to 2006, with a net inflow of ₱2.88 billion.

Those figures, lawmakers noted, do not appear in Duterte’s Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, where she declared a net worth of ₱88.5 million in 2024.

For several members of the justice committee, that discrepancy alone may already be enough to establish probable cause for allegations of unexplained wealth.