Senate Impeachment Court Clarifies Vote Threshold for Duterte Conviction

MANILA, Philippines — It will take only 10 votes from senator-judges to overturn the initial ruling that requires 16 votes to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, the Senate impeachment court clarified yesterday. Impeachment court spokesman Reginald Tongol explained that presiding officer Francis Escudero would not vote on the threshold as it was his ruling that 16 votes are needed to convict the Vice President. With four senators absent and Escudero excluded, only 19 senator-judges would be voting, which means a simple majority of 10 votes would be needed to change the threshold to convict Duterte, Tongol said. However, Tongol noted that if a stalemate occurs – for example, if another senator is absent or an absent senator would be present and the vote is tied – the motion to appeal will fail and Escudero’s 16-vote ruling will stand. The vote on the matter is slated on Sept. 23 and would be preceded by discussions by former chief justices Hilario Davide Jr., Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno and former Supreme Court associate justice Adolfo Azcuna. Davide and Azcuna were framers of the 1987 Constitution. Tongol said the experts were selected for their legal independence and lack of recent public statements on the threshold issue. “One of the things considered were their credentials, the decisions they released when they were with the SC... both those published in legal journals and penned as SC rulings,” Tongol said. During the special session, senator-judges will interpellate the legal experts on whether the base vote can be legally lowered, what the effects of the absent senators are and whether the Senate or the SC is the final arbiter of the issue. Duterte, meanwhile, questioned the decision of the Senate impeachment court to tap constitutional experts as amici curiae or friends of the court to resolve a possible deadlock on the number of votes required to convict or acquit her. “That threshold was decided in the first place to follow the Constitution. So, it means that now that the conversation has changed, it means they will change it. Why are we still talking about it if it is not going to be changed?” Duterte said in an interview in Quezon City yesterday. Duterte added that she has yet to receive an invitation from the Senate impeachment court after the prosecution team moved to invite her. “I can’t answer that because there is no paper or document yet that says I have to appear as the witness for the prosecution,” — Bella Cariaso