Any move to reduce the number of votes required to remove Vice President Sara Duterte from office cannot happen once the trial is already underway, the Senate impeachment court’s spokesperson said, cautioning that doing so would force the tribunal to rewrite its own rules while proceedings are in progress.
Reginald Tongol described such a step as “dangerous,” noting that it would require altering the framework governing the trial after it had begun. “That is not allowed,” he said.
The prevailing standard fixes conviction at 16 votes, or two-thirds of the 24-member chamber, as set out in the Constitution. At the outset of the proceedings, presiding officer Sen. Chiz Escudero affirmed that same figure as the number needed to unseat Duterte.
Pressure to reexamine the count has grown as several senator-judges have been kept away from the sessions. Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are in custody on plunder charges, Bato dela Rosa has gone into hiding to dodge a warrant from the International Criminal Court, and Loren Legarda has been absent on medical grounds since August.
Speaking the same Sunday, Senate President Win Gatchalian brushed aside claims—raised by Sen. Migz Zubiri—that senator-judges were preparing to bring the threshold down.
Weighing in earlier through the DAILY TRIBUNE, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, who helped draft the 1987 Constitution, said the court has no authority to reduce the bar for conviction short of removing a member from its ranks or treating that member as having resigned.
Azcuna added that when senators fail to appear, their votes register by default as abstentions rather than as anything else. Should the tribunal find against Duterte, she would not only lose her post but also be barred permanently from ever holding public office again.
