Solgen asks SC to junk Go, Padilla petition on impeachment voting threshold

MANILA — Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition filed by Senators Robin Padilla and Bong Go against the decision of the Senate Impeachment Court on the voting threshold to convict Vice President Sara Duterte.

In the comment filed by the Office of the Solicitor General, the petition of Padilla and Go are premature and lacked merit.

Last month, Padilla and Go asked the high court to to strike down the actual number of votes needed to find Duterte guilty at her impeachment trial.

Voting 13-1, with six abstaining, the 2/3 requirement of the Constitution for a guilty verdict involves “all members of the Senate” who are “capable of participating.”

In her comment, the Solicitor General said no grave abuse of discretion can be imputed on the Senate Impeachment Court.

The Solicitor General said the matter raised by the senators is a political question entrusted exclusively by the Constitution to the Senate as an Impeachment Court.

“Respectfully, respondent reminds that the framers of the Constitution, when drafting the provisions which would come to lay out the impeachment process, placed the process away from the judiciary, and into the authority and power of the political branchers,” the Solicitor General said in the petition filed for respondent Senate as an Impeachment Court.

The Solicitor General also stated that each branch of the government interprets the Constitution in the discharge of their function and the Senate did not amend, but merely interpreted the Constitutional provision on voting threshold.

“In doing so, they neither amended nor violated the Constitution but sought out the proper application of its provision given the factual  milieu the Senate Impeachment Court was confronted with,” the Solicitor General said.

The Solicitor General insisted that the ruling on the voting threshold was not an attempt to remove the 2/3 requirement of the Constitution as it was a ruling on who should be counted as part of the court when some senators are unable to take their oaths or participate.

The decision on the voting threshold was done by the Impeachment Court amid the continued absence of Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Rodante Marcoleta, Ronald Dela Rosa and Loren Legarda.

“Without such a rule, non-participating senators would be counted as though they had performed functions and as if they had voted for acquittal,” the Solicitor General said.

The Solicitor General also said the ruling of the Impeachment Court and its applicability to the Vice President does not violate the equal protection clause.

It was also noted that the Impeachment Court ruling cannot make rules for hypothetical future iterations of the Senate.

“To insist therefore that its rules be applied to all future conditions, to satisfy a jurisprudential test for validity meant for classifications in legislation, would be unreasonable, and would run aground equally important constitutional powers and prerogatives,” the Solicitor General said.

The Solicitor General also noted that the Impeachment Court sought the opinion of amici curiae who took opposing positions on the issue.

The Solicitor General also told the Supreme Court that Padilla and Go are not entitled to a Status Quo Ante Order, a Temporary Restraining Order or a Writ of Preliminary Injunction.

“The 1987 Constitution vests upon the Senate the sole and exclusive duty and mandate to try and decide all cases of impeachment, which shall forthwith proceed,” the Solicitor General said.