Any change to how many votes are needed to remove Vice President Sara Duterte from office must run through the Senate’s own amendment process and cannot be improvised, Senator-judge Robin Padilla argued as the impeachment court grappled with a thinned-out roster on September 8, 2026.
Padilla’s appeal landed amid a practical problem for the court: several of the 24 senator-judges are no longer able to sit. Loren Legarda is on sick leave and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa has gone into hiding, while Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada are both in detention over plunder cases, according to INQUIRER.net. Those absences are what put the conviction math back in dispute.
At the heart of the fight is a fixed number. Removing an impeached official requires the agreement of two-thirds of the full Senate — 16 of 24 senators. With so many judges sidelined, some have floated whether that figure should shrink to match whoever actually shows up to vote.
Padilla rejected that shortcut. He told his colleagues that the charter’s text is not something the court can bend to fit the moment, and that lawmakers who want to revisit it should take the matter to the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments rather than adjust it from the bench. “The Constitution cannot be altered or circumvented,” he said, per INQUIRER.net.
The senator framed the document as a shield for ordinary citizens rather than a technicality. “Ginawa ito ng Konstitusyon para galangin, bigyan ng boses, at patibayin ang karapatan ng bawat Pilipino… Uphold the Constitution,” he said.
His position tracks with the presiding officers’ earlier stance. Senate leaders have maintained that the 16-vote requirement holds no matter how many judges attend, which faction dominates the chamber, or who chairs the proceedings — a reading rooted in Article XI, Section 3(6) of the 1987 Constitution.
The threshold question is now headed for a formal reckoning. INQUIRER.net reported that the Senate is expected to take up on September 23 whether to preserve the 24-member base for the trial, with constitutional experts invited as “friends of the court” to weigh in beforehand. That debate was triggered in part by Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo, who flagged worries about judges who might be physically unable to cast a final vote when the court decides Duterte’s fate.
