The number of votes needed to remove Vice President Sara Duterte from office should ideally be locked in by the Supreme Court before senator-judges reach a verdict, Senator-Judge Panfilo Lacson said Sunday, warning that leaving the question open risks throwing the entire proceeding into doubt.
Lacson framed the concern around finality. Should the Impeachment Court convict on a computation the high tribunal later strikes down for grave abuse of discretion, he said, the result would be “messy” — a verdict undone after the fact rather than one that holds.
The senator sketched out where that danger lies. If the court were to set a smaller base figure for the two-thirds requirement, a conviction could theoretically pass on as few as 14 votes, only to be voided later on judicial review. “It is better that the issue be resolved this early and someone would bring it before the high court before we reach a decision, so we will be guided accordingly,” Lacson said in a radio interview.
The threshold has been contested since the trial opened at the Senate on July 6. Presiding officer Francis Escudero ruled that conviction requires 16 affirmative votes, computed against the full 24-member Senate regardless of who is physically present, citing the 2000 Supreme Court decision in Bayan v. Zamora. Three senators aligned with the Duterte camp have been sidelined during the proceedings: Ronald dela Rosa remains in hiding over an International Criminal Court warrant, while Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta face separate plunder charges before the Sandiganbayan.
Whether that absence should shrink the base number is the crux of the dispute. On the trial’s second day, Lacson pressed Escudero on whether his 16-vote pronouncement was personal legal opinion or a binding ruling of the court — and whether treating it as a ruling would convert it into a justiciable controversy the Supreme Court could later resolve. Escudero conceded it may already qualify as such, though he said only the courts, not the impeachment body, could make that call.
Lacson made clear the trial will not bend to online pressure while these questions get sorted out. “Like I said, you cannot satisfy everybody. There will always be critics and bashers. But we cannot afford to be distracted by minor issues. We have to push through with the trial as we see fit,” Lacson said.
Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, who helped draft the 1987 Constitution, has weighed in that the 16-vote figure stands because the sidelined senators still hold their seats and remain part of the two-thirds computation absent an actual vacancy.
