Detained Senator Jinggoy Estrada cannot sit as a senator-judge in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial while his 90-day suspension is in effect, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said Thursday, June 18, treating the penalty as one that disqualifies him from every duty attached to his seat.
Gatchalian framed the matter as a question of what a Senate suspension legally covers. “From what I understand, if you are suspended as a senator, being a senator-judge is also included. So the suspension is to the senator and it carries with it all the responsibilities as a senator, including becoming a senator-judge,” he said.
The penalty traces back to the Sandiganbayan’s 2nd Division, which ordered Estrada’s preventive suspension on June 16 over a pending graft case linked to the flood control corruption scandal. The senator is currently detained on non-bailable charges connected to the same controversy.
Rather than presenting the move as unusual, Gatchalian pointed to precedent. “This 90-day suspension is not new. This has happened in the past with other senators. So the practice in the past, and the legal practice in the past, that is what we will follow,” he said.
Estrada has resisted the idea that the suspension settles his standing. In a statement issued through his staff to Senate reporters, he called assertions that he is barred from the trial “premature,” arguing that the matter remains open while he has yet to file his comment and exhaust his legal remedies. He maintained that until a binding ruling is handed down, claims that he has lost his authority as a senator-judge undermine the impeachment process.
The dispute feeds directly into a larger unsettled question: how many votes are needed to convict. Gatchalian said the Senate would adhere to the constitutional text, which under Article XI requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all Senate members. He read that as a fixed standard regardless of attendance — two-thirds of 24 remaining 16.
That reading is contested. Retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio told Rappler that a senator under preventive suspension cannot exercise the powers of office, including the right to vote, and therefore should not be counted toward the threshold — a view that, if accepted, could lower the number required to remove Duterte. Estrada is not the only absent member feeding the math problem; Senator Ronald dela Rosa has stayed away from the chamber amid an International Criminal Court warrant tied to crimes-against-humanity allegations.
The trial proper is scheduled to open on July 6, with the Senate having convened as an impeachment court on May 18.
