CJ game plan: No two-thirds Senate vote?

MANILA, Philippines — Regardless of the weight of evidence, getting Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno convicted by the Senate impeachment court is expected to be an uphill battle for the prosecution team of the House of Representatives.

A reliable source has disclosed that this early, the camp of the chief magistrate – whose political and financial backers worked for the previous administration of former president Benigno Aquino III – has devised a “game plan.”

“The objective is not to reach the two-thirds vote at all costs. What they intend to do is to have some friendly senators recuse themselves so that the constitutional requirement of 16 or 17 votes to convict will not be reached,” a ranking incumbent government official told The STAR.

As it is now, Aquino’s Liberal Party bloc at the Senate is composed of five senators led by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and joined by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, a vocal critic of President Duterte, thereby making them a total of six.

The four others are Senators Bam Aquino, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros and Leila de Lima who is detained at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame on drug trafficking charges. It is yet unclear whether she will be allowed to vote or not.

“This is where the role of the so-called friendly senators will come in. The idea is for them to play it safe and not to take sides – which is neither to vote for acquittal nor vote to convict. That is the bottomline: for the votes not to reach 16 or 17,” the source explained.

The source, however, did not identify who the two to three “friendly senators” will be.

“Hindi ba kayo nagtataka kung bakit gusting gusto ni Chief Justice ma-impeach siya? Sino bang impeachable official ang nasa tamang pag-iisip ang gustong ma-impeach siya? Siya lang bukod tangi!” the official, who is also a lawyer, pointed out.

The source noted the difference of Sereno from her two predecessors who experienced similar ouster attempts – retired chief justice Hilario Davide Jr. and the late Renato Corona who was convicted in 2012 for violating the statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) law, which is not even a ground for impeachment.

“Davide then didn’t want to be impeached, and in fact survived his impeachment at the level of the House, while Corona didn’t have the opportunity to defend himself after 188 of P-Noy’s House allies impeached him without even reading the complaint,” he compared.

The source also predicted Drilon might be put in a bind as he voted in 2012 to convict Corona borne out of the case of court interpreter Delsa Flores who failed to declare in her SALN a stall in the public market she owned, which is very much like Sereno’s case.

Sereno was found not just to have violated the SALN law – for which her predecessor Corona was convicted – as she hardly filed any, from the time she was appointed Supreme Court justice until she was promoted chief justice, and concealed two properties in Davao City and Bataan.

Aside from the six opposition senators, 17 more are perceived to be friendly to the Duterte administration: Senate President Koko Pimentel, Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto and Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto, Senators Panfilo Lacson, Francis Escudero, Grace Poe, Manny Pacquiao, Cynthia Villar, Richard Gordon, Sonny Angara, Joel Villanueva, Migz Zubiri, JV Ejercito, Nancy Binay, Sherwin Gatchalian, Gringo Honasan and Loren Legarda.

The 24th member of the Senate, Alan Peter Cayetano, was appointed by Duterte to be the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs.