Padilla, Go ask Supreme Court to strike down impeachment court’s voting rule

MANILA — Senators Robin Padilla and Christopher Lawrence Go, have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the lower threshold of votes needed to find Vice President Sara Duterte guilty at her impeachment trial. 

Senators in September voted 13-1, with six abstaining, that the constitutionally required two-thirds guilty verdict by “all members of the Senate” refers only to those “capable of participating”.

Go, Padilla, the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) and others filed Tuesday a petition for certiorari and prohibition against the impeachment court’s ruling. 

They argued that the Constitution fixes the voting base at all 24 members of the Senate.  

“This case is not about whether the Vice President should be convicted or acquitted,” the petitioners said in a statement. “It is about the number the Constitution requires before any conviction can lawfully be rendered. The Constitution says two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. With twenty-four Senators, that is sixteen.”

They added that a threshold that moves with attendance would “allow a simple majority to dilute a supermajority the Constitution wrote in express terms, in this trial and in every impeachment after it.”     

At least four senators are now absent from the impeachment proceedings.

Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are detained on plunder charges, while Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa is hiding while sought on an International Criminal Court warrant.

Sen. Loren Legarda is out of the country seeking medical treatment. 

The Supreme Court in late September junked a separate petition against the voting threshold “on procedural grounds, including lack of standing and prematurity.”