Hans Holbein. The Triumph of Riches (copy by Lucas Vorsterman the Elder after Hans Holbein the Younger). Pen and brown ink with brown, grey and green washes, black and red chalks and blue and white bodycolor. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK. Right-clicked from http://www.abcgallery.com

(Update as of 2:26 pm: According to inquirer.net, Uno through Atty. Tamano filed a 38-page supplemental complaint to the impeachment complaint against the President while Atty. Roque filed an 11-page supplemental complaint to the impeachment complaint against Abalos, impleading the President; the complaint against Abalos was reportedly never archived but remained pending.)

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The “opposition” through representatives said they would either (1) file asupplemental pleading or (2) file a supplement; or (3) file an amended one; or, a fourth option, implead the President in the archived impeachment complaint against Benjamin Abalos.

The Rules of Court govern in a suppletory manner. That means when the rules of procedure of the House do not provide for a specific situation, the Rules of Court can be used to fill the gap.

A supplemental pleading and filing “supplements” are different from each other.

On supplemental pleading: A party may, upon motion, be allowed to file a supplemental pleading to an initiatory pleading (here, the original impeachment complaint) for occurrences that took place after the initiatory pleading was filed.

According to former Justice Regalado, the difference between an amended pleading and a supplemental pleading are as follows:

Quote “ (a)Amended pleadings refer to facts existing at the time of the commencement of the action; supplemental pleadings refer to facts arising after the filing of the original pleading.

Quote “ (b) An amended pleading results in the withdrawal of the original pleading; a supplemental pleading is merely in addition to but does not result in the withdrawal of the original pleading.

Quote “(c) An amended pleading can be made as of right, as when no responsive pleading has been filed; supplemental pleadings are always with leave of court.” Closed-quote. (Regalado, Remedial Law Compendium).

A “supplement” consisting of affidavits on the other hand is different; it’s like, the party simply wants to submit additional annexes; it does not touch the initiatory pleading itself, and, in my practice, can be filed ex parte without leave of court and without even a hearing on it; it’s “non-adversarial” for lack of a better term on my part, ex parte means the party is allowed to file it even without notice and participation of the other party. So, all that would be required is something like a motion to admit Annex “A-1” to “A-27” and Annexes “Z” , “T” “E”, for example.

For a supplemental pleading (the first i discussed), here’s the provision:

“Rules of Court. Rule 10. Sec. 6. Supplemental pleadings. Upon motion of a party the court may, upon reasonable notice and upon such terms as are just, permit him to serve a supplemental pleading setting forth transactions, occurrences or events which have happened since the date of the pleading sought to be supplemented. The adverse party may plead thereto within ten (10) days from notice of the order admitting the supplemental pleading.”

Salvador Dalí. The Invisible Man. 1929-33. Oil on canvas. 140 x 81 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Right-clicked from http://www.abcgallery.com

For a “supplement” or “supplements”, that would just be a Motion to Admit Annexes etc. , that’s a motion, and not a pleading so the party filing it does not have to jump the hoops on initiatory pleadings, and amended and supplemental, etc.; the general rules on motions apply; it shouldn’t be much bother because in fact it can be filed ex parte.

For impleading the President in the archived impeachment complaint against Ben Abalos, I blogged about it last October 1, 2007, minutes after Abalos resigned. Here’s the link. following the evidence At that time, nobody thought of impleading the President (as i blogged about) before the impeachment complaint was archived.

There’s also another one. Practically unwritten or implied. You can actually introduce and present evidence on matters newly discovered and not raised in the initiatory pleading. That’s what we did when the House impeached Estrada, and during the trial in the Senate; it’s allowed by the rules of procedure, except in the end, the eleven Senator-judges voted not to allow us anymore to present evidence even if the rules allow it. The rules allow it as follows:

“Rules of Court. Rule 10. Sec. 5. Amendment to conform to or authorize presentation of evidence. When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried with the express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment; but failure to amend does not affect the result of the trial of these issues. If evidence is objected to at the trial on the ground that it is not within the issues made by the pleadings, the court may allow the pleadings to be amended and shall do so with liberality if the presentation of the merits of the action and the ends of substantial justice will be subserved thereby. The court may grant a continuance to enable the amendment to be made.”

But that day in 2001, it wasn’t the Rules of Court that changed the world.