The Integrated Bar of the Philippines has declared that the Senate’s June 3 session — in which 12 senators reorganized the chamber’s leadership — was lawful and validly constituted, lending the weight of the country’s official lawyers’ organization to a quorum question that has split the upper house.
In a statement dated June 4 from the Office of the National Director for Communications under its 27th Board of Governors, the IBP said the session that ousted the existing leadership and installed Senator Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian as Senate President Pro Tempore rested on sound constitutional footing. The group anchored its position on the 1949 Supreme Court ruling in Avelino v. Cuenco, the same case the prevailing bloc invoked on the floor.
The constitutional question
At issue is Article VI, Section 16(2) of the 1987 Constitution, which states that a majority of each House constitutes a quorum to do business. The dispute turned on what that majority is counted against — all 24 senators, or only those the chamber can actually compel to attend.
The IBP pointed to Avelino v. Cuenco, which interpreted identically worded language in the 1935 Constitution. In that case, the Supreme Court held that “the House” for quorum purposes does not mean all its members, and that senators beyond the reach of the chamber may be excluded from the base count. The 1949 ruling also stressed a practical reading of the Constitution — one that lets the Senate function rather than be paralyzed by members who cannot realistically be made to attend.
Applying the doctrine to June 3
The IBP said the same logic governed the June 3 session, where only 12 senators were physically present. Two members, it noted, were beyond the chamber’s coercive power: one detained over a non-bailable offense, and another whose whereabouts have been unknown, by the IBP’s account, since May 11, 2026.
Those two are Senator Jinggoy Estrada, who surrendered on June 1 after the Sandiganbayan issued a warrant on a non-bailable plunder charge tied to the flood control corruption scandal, and Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who has evaded an International Criminal Court arrest warrant and slipped out of the Senate premises in mid-May. Senator Panfilo Lacson publicly cited the same two absences in defending the quorum.
Excluding both, the IBP reasoned, left 22 senators within the Senate’s jurisdiction. A majority of 22 is 12 — the number present — so a valid quorum existed.
Acts presumed regular
The organization concluded that the June 3 session was lawful and that its outputs stand. All acts, resolutions, and decisions made that day, the IBP said, are presumed to be official acts of the Senate under the presumption of regularity in the discharge of official functions.
The statement arrives amid a bitter standoff. The session followed a period in which the bloc led by then-Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano skipped sessions on June 1 and 2, after the rival group had earlier walked out on May 26 to deny a quorum. The deadlock broke when Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero — a member of the Cayetano-aligned majority — appeared and gave the 11 waiting senators the 12th body needed to proceed. The chamber then declared all leadership posts vacant and installed a new slate.
Malacañang has acknowledged the new majority and Gatchalian’s leadership, though Cayetano’s camp continues to contest the legitimacy of the quorum that unseated him.
