Marcos ‘respects’ SC dismissal of petitions vs impeachment vote

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. respects the Supreme Court’s (SC) decision to dismiss three petitions seeking to invalidate the Senate impeachment court’s Sept. 23 decision to lower the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, Palace press officer Claire Castro said.

At a briefing on Thursday, Castro said the high court likely found that the petitioners lacked legal standing and did not have a sufficient personal or legal interest to bring the case.

READ: SC junks 3 petitions vs impeachment court’s ‘two-thirds’ ruling

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“First of all, the decision regarding the clarification of the phrase ‘all members of the Senate’ came from the Senate itself. So, whatever action the Senate has taken on this matter, as well as whatever decision the Supreme Court has made, the president and the administration will respect,” said Castro when asked for a comment on the decision.

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“As for the issue of prematurity, the Supreme Court likely also saw that there was not yet any indication that the alleged harm could occur because the situation had not yet reached the point where there was any reason for concern,” she also said.

READ: Palace challenges claims of Marcos meddling in Sara Duterte impeachment

The SC, sitting as en banc, junked on Wednesday the petitions separately filed by former Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, constitutional lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr., and disbarred lawyer Berteni Causing on procedural grounds, including lack of standing and being premature.

Their petitions challenged the Sept. 23 ruling, which interpreted the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote of “all the members of the Senate” to mean senators legally and factually capable of participating in the proceedings when the judgment is made.

The impeachment court’s 13-1 vote effectively changed the denominator for determining the two-thirds threshold. If only 20 senator-judges were eligible to participate when judgment is rendered, 14 votes would be needed for conviction instead of 16. /das