01/05/2026
Can a Sitting Vice President Be Criminally Charged? Is It Really “Settled”?
NBI Director Matibag reportedly stated that “a sitting Vice President can be charged” and that this is “already settled” in Carpio Morales v. Court of Appeals and Binay Jr.
With due respect, that statement requires serious qualification.
The case being cited is:
Conchita Carpio Morales, in her capacity as the Ombudsman v. Court of Appeals (Sixth Division) and Jejomar Erwin S. Binay, Jr., G.R. Nos. 217126-27, November 10, 2015, En Banc, per Justice Perlas-Bernabe.
That case is important. But it did not involve a sitting Vice President being criminally charged.
The respondent there was Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr., who was then the Mayor of Makati City, a local elective official. He was not an impeachable officer. The case arose from administrative and criminal complaints involving the Makati City Hall Parking Building.
That distinction matters.
What the case actually decided
The Supreme Court made three major rulings in that case.
First, it declared Section 14, paragraph 2 of Republic Act No. 6770, or the Ombudsman Act, unconstitutional because it effectively increased the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction without its advice and concurrence, contrary to Article VI, Section 30 of the Constitution.
Second, it held that Section 14, paragraph 1 of Republic Act No. 6770 was ineffective because Congress cannot, by statute, prohibit courts from issuing provisional remedies such as TROs and writs of preliminary injunction in a manner that encroaches upon the Supreme Court’s rule-making power under Article VIII, Section 5(5) of the Constitution.
Third, it abandoned the condonation doctrine prospectively. That doctrine had previously held that the reelection of a public officer condoned prior administrative misconduct. The Court rejected it because it had no constitutional or statutory basis and was inconsistent with the constitutional principle that public office is a public trust.
What the case did not decide
The case did not squarely decide whether a sitting Vice President may be criminally charged while still in office.
The Court did discuss impeachable officers, but mainly in relation to the Ombudsman’s authority and the limits of administrative discipline. The relevant provisions of Republic Act No. 6770 are clear.
Section 21 provides that the Ombudsman has disciplinary authority over elective and appointive officials, except officials who may be removed only by impeachment, Members of Congress, and the Judiciary.
Section 22 provides that the Ombudsman may investigate serious misconduct allegedly committed by officials removable by impeachment for the purpose of filing a verified complaint for impeachment, if warranted.
This means that, at the very least, the Ombudsman cannot impose administrative discipline directly upon an impeachable officer in the same way it may discipline local officials, appointive officials, or other non-impeachable public officers.
But the separate question is this:
May a sitting Vice President be criminally charged before impeachment and removal from office?
That precise issue was not the controlling issue in Carpio Morales v. CA and Binay Jr. The case involved a city mayor. It did not involve the Vice President. It did not involve a criminal information filed against a sitting Vice President. It did not resolve the constitutional consequences of prosecuting, convicting, or detaining a Vice President while still in office.
To say that the matter is “already settled” by that case is therefore an overstatement.
The constitutional issue is more nuanced
The 1987 Constitution provides that the President, Vice President, Members of the Supreme Court, Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office only by impeachment.
For impeachment, the House threshold must also be stated accurately. Under Article XI, Section 3, a vote of at least one-third of all Members of the House of Representatives is required to affirm a favorable resolution with Articles of Impeachment, or to override a contrary committee resolution. Also, a verified complaint or resolution filed by at least one-third of all House Members constitutes the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall proceed forthwith.
Conviction in the Senate requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all Members of the Senate.
Article XI, Section 3(7) further states that judgment in impeachment cases shall not extend beyond removal from office and disqualification, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial, and punishment according to law.
This provision clearly recognizes criminal liability after impeachment conviction. The harder constitutional question is whether it also bars criminal prosecution before impeachment and removal, especially for impeachable officers other than the President.
That is the issue which remains legally debatable.
However, here is why the Director’s statement is problematic. The problem is not that there are no arguments supporting criminal prosecution of a sitting Vice President. There are.
The problem is saying that the matter is already “settled” by Carpio Morales v. CA and Binay Jr.
It is not.
That case established that the Ombudsman cannot directly discipline impeachable officers administratively in the same way it may discipline non-impeachable officers. It also recognized that the Ombudsman may investigate impeachable officers for purposes of impeachment. But it did not finally resolve whether a sitting Vice President may be criminally charged, tried, convicted, or imprisoned while still holding office.
That unresolved question raises serious constitutional concerns.
If a sitting Vice President is prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned without impeachment, what happens to the office? Is the officer practically removed despite the constitutional rule that removal must be by impeachment? Can the Vice President remain constitutionally in office while physically unable to discharge the functions of the office? How would this affect presidential succession under Article VII?
These are not minor procedural questions. They involve the structure of constitutional accountability, separation of powers, and continuity of government.
This is why it is our position that the structural logic of the Constitution itself compels the extension of immunity from suit to the Vice President. Under the 1987 Constitution, the Vice President is not merely a secondary official but the designated constitutional successor to the President — the one individual who, at any moment, may be called upon to assume the full weight of executive power. To allow courts to distract, harass, or potentially incapacitate the Vice President through litigation while permitting the President to govern free from such interference would create a glaring asymmetry in the protection afforded to the two highest offices in the land. The Supreme Court’s rationale for presidential immunity, that the dignity and functionality of the office must be preserved, applies with equal, if not identical, force to the Vice President, whose institutional role demands the same freedom from judicial distraction.
The impeachment clause further reinforces this position. Section 2, Article XI of the Constitution places the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court, members of constitutional commissions, and the Ombudsman in a distinct constitutional category: officials removable only through impeachment. This deliberate grouping by the framers signals a clear constitutional intent to insulate these officials from ordinary modes of legal accountability during their tenure, reserving their removal exclusively to Congress. Allowing a court of law to effectively neutralize or remove an impeachable official through judicial proceedings would directly subvert this constitutional design. Immunity from suit is therefore not a privilege arbitrarily extended to the Vice President — it is a necessary corollary of the impeachment framework that the Constitution itself established.
