Impeachment Court May Defer Vote on Conviction Threshold

The Senate impeachment court may defer its scheduled September 23 voting on the threshold needed for a conviction, court spokesperson Regie Tongol said. Tongol said that this is because there are Senator judges who have appealed to their colleagues for more time to decide, given that the oral arguments on the matter will only be conducted also on September 23. “There are Senator judges who are appealing for additional time [before making the decision] because the parties [to the case] might raise additional arguments which were not put forward by the amici curiae. They said they might need to study it further over the weekend to be fully evaluate the merits ahead of deciding on their vote,” Tongol said in a press conference. Amici curiae are the "friends of the court" invited to speak before the Senate impeachment court on the matter of the conviction threshold in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte: former Supreme Court Chief Justices Hilario Davide, Jr. Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno, and retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna. “Hindi po malayo sa posibilidad na…maaari ring may humingi ng deferment po ng vote tomorrow at ma-reschedule iyong votation na kaysa tomorrow, some other time next week,” Tongol added. (It's not outside the realm of possibility that a deferment of the vote may be requested tomorrow, and the votation deferred to some other time next week instead of tomorrow.) The legal luminaries were invited to weigh in on whether the Constitution requires a definite 16 votes from Senator judges for a conviction. Article 11, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution states that “no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.” Davide, Panganiban and Puno all said that 16 is not the threshold, given that the Constitution states a fraction—two-thirds—and not a number, in determining the threshold for conviction. Likewise, the three said that allowing those absent to vote would be unfair, if not an injustice, to the Filipino people since an impartial judge needs to evaluate the evidence for them to be able to make a sound judgment. Only Azcuna advanced the position of retaining the 16-vote threshold as earlier ruled by Senate impeachment court presiding officer Francis Escudero, saying that moving the threshold should only happen if a member of members of the Senate dies. Escudero’s ruling of 16 votes as threshold has since been challenged by Senator Erwin Tulfo, given that four of the 24 Senators have not been present to participate in the ongoing impeachment trial of the Vice President. Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are detained on plunder and other related charges due to their alleged involvement in flood control and undeclared campaign donations, respectively.Senator Ronald dela Rosa, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found amid a standing warrant of arrest issued against him by the International Criminal Court due to his alleged involvement in the drug war deaths. Senator Loren Legarda, for her part, is on an extended medical leave abroad due to a lung ailment. While Azcuna was the lone dissenter in changing the threshold, all the amici curiae agreed that the Senate impeachment court has the authority to determined the voting threshold needed for conviction because the Constitution provides that the Senate has the sole power to try and decide impeachment cases. — BM, GMA News