Two-thirds to punish a scam

Seventeen so-called senator-judges showed up at the resumption yesterday, Tuesday, Aug. 24, of the trial of twice impeached Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte.

Being tried now by the Senate Impeachment Court is Charge No. 1 – Sara’s misappropriation of taxpayers’ money worth P612.5 million. More than half a billion people’s money disappeared. Much of the money was received on behalf of thousands of recipients by a security guard, a chief security guard, who is not even authorized at all to get the money in the first place – a certain Colonel Lachica. His main qualification is that VP Sara trusted him to get the money. Also, his imagination in inventing thousands of magical names (over 4,900), atrocious names, outrageous names, is limitless.

The missing money went to fictitious or non-existent recipients, including one (per yesterday’s hearing) named after a vagina – Xuniso P. Belat received P100,000. “Belat” is Visayan for vagina.

“Animals” also got monies – Antonio Pagong (turtle) P100,000, and Timon Andrew Pusa (cat) P100,000; a person named after rage, Shane “Ngitngit,” P150,000; a disabled person, Don Piang (Visayan for pilay), got P250,000.

At least the way Sara wasted our people’s hard earned money, she applied diversity and inclusion and engaged inhabitants of the animal and plant kingdoms (tree planting is allowed as a confidential activity); body parts (vagina and legs or lack of them) and a range of emotions (ngitngit).

Imagine if VP Sara were our president, you could fly into a rage, rain cats and dogs, summon your basic instinct and – defenestrate her. Pronto.

Could people stand so much bulls**t from a public official? She certainly has betrayed the public trust as our vice president. Because of her scams and unconscionable behavior as a public official.

Will the Senate impeachment court convict Sara Duterte? That is not a certainty despite damning evidence of guilt.

Are there enough or 16 of the 24 votes to declare her guilty and ousted from public office forever?

Among those absent: Bato dela Rosa, Jinggoy Estrada, Rodante Marcoleta, Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano and Bong Go.

Bato is in hiding. He was the author of the Oplan Double Barrel to kill from 6,200 to 30,000 innocent civilians during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.

Estrada and Marcoleta are jailed for alleged plunder, a non-bailable offense. Loren Legarda is on an extended medical leave, after the ombudsman announced she is being investigated for ghost electricity worth P12 billion of solar power.

Alan Cayetano has been scarce after the ombudsman investigated the multibillion-peso flood control scam in Taguig.

Bong Go is also a suspect before the ICC as the alleged pay master for the extrajudicial killings enforced by president Duterte and General Bato.

Retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban now says determining two-thirds is not based on the entire membership of a court hearing a case.

He writes in his recent Inquirer column:

“The (Supreme) Court does not always compute its majority from its full complement of 15 members. The Internal Rules of the Court provide that an en banc case requires a quorum of at least eight members, and a decision on a case is attained with the ‘concurrence of the majority of the Members of the Court who actually took part in the deliberations’ and voted thereon. Consequently, the computation of the mathematical denominator shifts depending on ACTIVE participation.

“Moreover, the Court stressed that ‘[m]ore than the vote, Court deliberation is the core of the decision-making process, and one voice less is not only a vote less but a contributed opinion, an observation or a cautionary word less for the Court.’ It added that a court without a chief justice is not a whole Supreme Court with only 14 members who could not effectively act and vote on critical matters that ‘may gravely affect the nation.’”

The rule thus – based on the two-thirds on the number of judges or justices hearing the case.  If a judge is forever absent or mostly absent during most of the hearings, the judge obviously cannot exercise his legendary probity to decide the case.

Former FEU law dean Mel Sta. Maria says the Constitution is in fact clear:  it is two-thirds of sitting judges in an impeachment court. Sitting is physical; only those present.

Mel cites Section 3 (6) Article Xl of the 1987 Constitution: “The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When SITTING FOR THAT PURPOSE, the senators shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, but shall not vote. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of ALL MEMBERS OF THE SENATE.”

All members of the Senate means only those senators who took their oath and sitting as judges in the impeachment court.

Mel explains:

This oath or affirmation is the pre-requisite “while sitting for that purpose,” meaning while participating as judges in the impeachment court. “Sitting” easily connotes presence.

“The law is therefore clear. A senator cannot be transformed into a judge without taking his oath or affirmation. These two are the sustaining elements during the duration of the proceedings that shall allow them to be judges. Without the oath or affirmation, they are senators as legislators but not judges in the impeachment court.”

When the fourth sentence of Section 3 (6) states: “....concurrence of two-thirds of ALL MEMBERS OF THE SENATE,” it did not directly say “senators,” it only said “all members of the Senate.”

This clearly avoids confusion on who can decide – only “all members of the Senate” who are sitting judges – in harmony with the second sentence of the provision stating “while sitting for that purpose.”

By the way, my lawyer daughter who wrote the column on the odyssey of an abandoned housewife, Penelope, is Ivy Lopez, Ateneo law.

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