Duterte trial: Presiding officer’s decision can be overturned – Escudero

MANILA, Philippines — Senate Impeachment Court Presiding Officer Francis Escudero said Wednesday that while he opposes lowering the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, the other senator-judges can overturn his decision.

The court had decided to restrict some of its members from voting on Duterte’s fate, effectively lowering the threshold for conviction. Escudero said he disagreed with the move but respected the court’s decision.

The impeachment court will exclude senator-judges who are detained or suspended, in hiding, medically incapacitated, or beyond its coercive powers when determining the denominator for the two-thirds vote needed for a conviction.

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“For the record, while the Chair takes exception to this decision, the Chair nonetheless accepts it as a judgment of this court and is bound to give it effect. The presiding officer, after all, is not the court. He is merely the custodian of the process, not the proprietor of its outcome,” Escudero explained.

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At the start of the trial last July 6, Escudero said that 16 votes are required for a conviction, based on the complete 24-member Senate.

According to Escudero, the 1987 Constitution already provides that no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, or at least 16 of 24 elected senators.

He cited the Supreme Court ruling on Bayan v. Zamora, which concerned the Senate’s compliance with the two-thirds vote required to concur in a treaty.

Escudero’s statement has been cited by senator-judges in insisting that the threshold must not be changed.

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READ: Escudero maintains: 16 votes needed to convict Sara Duterte

Senate’s legitimacy

According to Escudero, having a presiding officer’s decisions overturned is part of “the essence of democracy.”

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“This is the tradition that gives the strength and legitimacy to the Senate, whether we sit as a legislative body or as an impeachment court,” he added. “We allow the fullest ventilation of views, even if those views differ sharply from our own. But at the end of the day, we vote. We abide by the judgment of the majority, even if we disagree with it.”

Before Escudero’s clarification, the court approved a motion to revise the 16-vote threshold needed to convict Duterte. Thirteen senator-judges voted in favor of the amendment.

He then laid down specific conditions on who would be barred from voting when the court decides the case and how the two-thirds vote would be counted.

READ: Impeach court ruling on conviction threshold: Who can’t vote?

Escudero further clarified that the number of votes required to convict Duterte would still be two-thirds of the members present. But if the computation of two-thirds results in a decimal point, such as when only 20 senator-judges remain, which would mean 13.33, Escudero said they would round up even if the decimal point is less than 0.5.

This means that instead of needing 13 votes to convict Duterte, 14 senator-judges would be needed to remove Duterte from office.

Under Article XI, Section 3(5) of the 1987 Constitution, the Senate is given the “sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.” The same provision states that an impeached official will only be convicted upon the “concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.”

Ordinarily, two-thirds of 24 members of the Senate is 16, but the absence of several senator-judges has raised questions from different sides. Some individuals supportive of the vice president have insisted that all members of the Senate refer even to senators who are beyond the coercive powers of the chamber, since their titles as senators were not removed from them.

However, others have asked how judges can make a sound decision if they have not observed the proceedings and failed to study documents and witnesses’ testimonies.

This was the same point raised by public prosecutor and Akbayan party-list Rep. Chel Diokno, who led the oral arguments for the prosecution panel.

READ: Diokno: If senator-judges are absent, will vacant seats decide case?

Currently, four senators have missed a huge part of the trial: Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Rodante Marcoleta, and Ronald dela Rosa have not attended a single trial day, while Senator Loren Legarda left the country in early August.

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Estrada and Marcoleta have been detained on separate plunder raps, while dela Rosa has evaded the public eye amid an arrest order from the International Criminal Court. Legarda is on medical leave. /mcm