Go, Padilla ask SC: Void lower impeach vote to convict

MANILA, Philippines — Undeterred by a recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling, minority Senators Robinhood Padilla and Bong Go are asking the SC to rule against the recent decision of the Senate impeachment court to allow a lower number of votes to convict Vice President Sara Duterte.

Padilla and Go, along with Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) chairman Alfonso Cusi, lawyers Israelito Torreon, Jimmy Bondoc, Ferdinand Topacio, Raul Lambino and Resci Angelli Rizada-Nolasco and actor Phillip Salvador filed a 106-page petition for certiorari and prohibition before the high tribunal on Tuesday.

They asked the SC to issue a status quo ante order or temporary restraining order (TRO) to block the Senate impeachment court’s interpretation of the constitutional denominator of “all” senators in the two-thirds vote to convict, which excluded senators who are detained and suspended, in hiding or on sick leave.

The impeachment court’s decision, which garnered a 13-6-1 vote, overturned the ruling of its presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero that 16 votes – two-thirds of all the 24 senators – would be needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing impeachment trial.

Padilla and Go – both Duterte allies – were among the six who did not vote along with Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and his sister Pia Cayetano, Camille Villar and Imee Marcos.

The petitioners also urged the high court to uphold Article XI Section 3(6) of the 1987 Constitution, which they said meant “the concurrence of not less than 16 senators to convict.”

“No senator who holds office may be excluded from the count by reason of detention, suspension, incapacity, absence, non-participation or any similar circumstance,” the petition pointed out.

According to a statement from Torreon’s law office posted on its Facebook page yesterday, “a senator who is absent, detained, ill or under legal restraint remains a member of the Senate. All twenty-four seats are occupied; none has been vacated. The text says ‘all the members,’ notmembers present, voting or able to participate.”

Sens. Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are detained due to plunder and graft charges while Sen. Loren Legarda has been on medical leave since August. Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, is in hiding.

The petition also sought to prevent the Senate impeachment court from implementing the lower two-thirds conviction vote should they indeed decide to find Duterte guilty of impeachable acts.

While it “does not ask the (SC) to weigh the evidence or take over the Senate’s power to try and decide the case,” the petitioners warned “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.”

The petition also acknowledged the SC’s earlier ruling to dismiss the petitions against the lower two-thirds conviction vote threshold filed by lawyers Vic Rodriguez, President Marcos’ former executive secretary, and Ernesto Francisco Jr., and disbarred lawyer Berteni Causing because they “lacked legal standing” and that their issues were yet “premature” to be tackled.

However, Padilla, Go, PDP-Laban and other petitioners argued their pleading should be granted because it was filed by two sitting senator-judges, and that the issues raised there would affect the political group’s “active member” Dela Rosa and Marcoleta, whose candidacy it supported.

Named as respondents were the Senate impeachment court represented by Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian, presiding officer Escudero and the House of Representatives through Speaker Faustino Dy III and prosecution panel head Rep. Gerville Luistro.