SC asked to void impeachment court ruling on vote threshold for Sara Duterte's conviction

Former Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez has asked the Supreme Court to declare null and void the September 23 ruling of the Senate impeachment court in the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte. Rodriguez also asked for a temporary restraining order on the ruling, which lowered the base of the two-thirds vote needed to convict from all the members of the Senate to all the members who can legally and factually participate in the proceedings. He said the Constitution set the voting threshold at two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, which should be 16 if all 24 senators are counted. The former executive secretary asked the SC to “declare null and void the September 23, 2026 ruling insofar as it reduces or permits the reduction of the constitutional denominator by excluding incumbent Senators merely because they are absent, non- participating, unable to participate, beyond the coercive processes of the Senate, or otherwise deemed similarly situated.” Moreover, Rodriguez asked the SC to declare that the Article XI, Section 3(6) of the 1987 Constitution—the provision that stated that two-thirds of the senate is needed to convict an officer—pertained to all 24 members of the Senate. The SC is also urged to declare that the Senate could not, by its own rules of procedure, modify a constitutional denominator. Rodriguez also asked the High Court to reinstate the ruling of impeachment presiding officer Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero on July 6, which set the conviction threshold at 16, In a 24-page petition, Rodriguez reasoned that the Constitution did not provide that the latest decision from the impeachment court changed the number of votes constitutionally required to convict an impeached officer. “This is not merely a change in procedure. It changes the operative constitutional threshold for conviction. In essence, the Tribunal has added a qualification to the constitutional phrase: ‘all Members of the Senate’. The Constitution itself contains no such qualification,” the petition read. Rodriguez further argued that the Constitution identified the Senate as a body composed of 24 senators. Absence does not indicate that a person is no longer a senator, he said. There are four senators who have been largely absent from the impeachment proceedings. Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are both facing plunder charges and have been detained at the Quezon City Jail while awaiting trial. Meanwhile, Sen. Loren Legarda is on prolonged medical leave in France, but is also under investigation by the Ombudsman for plunder and graft.