The Corona impeachment verdict: How it’s all going down

After the closing arguments on Monday, the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona enters its final stage when the Senate sitting as an Impeachment Court decides on the verdict or final judgment: to convict or to acquit.

 

Senate Resolution No. 39, prescribing the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials, lays down how it’s all going down–how many votes it takes to convict, how many times the senator-judges get to vote, and whether they have to explain their votes or not.

 

Well, not exactly “all.” Some key elements, like the sentencing of the penalty, have been left out of Senate Impeachment Rule XXI, which was based on a similar rule of the Senate of the United States of America.

 

16 votes to convict 

 

The verdict or judgment is the stage where the senator-judges vote on what the Senate Rules call the “final question”–of whether to “sustain” all or any of the three remaining articles of impeachment lodged against Corona.

 

Last December, the House of Representatives by a vote of 188 members, transmitted to the Senate eight articles of impeachment against Corona. But in the course of the trial, the House prosecution panel dropped articles I, IV, V, VI, and VIII.

 

To convict Corona, two-thirds of the members of the Senate must vote him to be guilty of a single impeachable offense. That is, the votes of 16 out of 23 senator-judges are needed to convict.

 

A guilty verdict on any one of the articles results in a conviction. Anything less than 16 votes in all three articles of impeachment, and Corona must be acquitted.

 

The Senate Rules on Impeachment prohibit any “motion to reconsider the vote by which any article of impeachment is sustained or rejected.”

 

Senators to vote on each article

 

The senators could possibly be called upon to vote three times on Tuesday. First on article II (incomplete disclosure in annual Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth); next on article III (“flipping” a final and executory Supreme Court decision); and finally, on article VII (irregular issuance of a temporary restraining order to allow former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to flee abroad).

 

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, as the Impeachment Court’s presiding officer, gets to vote last each time.

 

“If in article II there is an acquittal, we proceed to [vote on] article III,” explained Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III. “If there is an acquittal [again], we proceed to article VII.”

 

However, Sotto said: “If in article II there is a conviction, we will no longer proceed to article III.”

 

Explanation of vote

 

A senator-judge need not explain his or her vote, unlike members of the judiciary who are all required under the 1987 Constitution to put in writing the facts and the law upon which their judicial decisions are based.

 

Rule XXI provides that a senator only has to “rise in his/her place and answer: guilty or not guilty.”

 

But the same rule also provides: “If he/she so wishes, a Senator may explain his/her vote for not more than two (2) minutes.”

 

“I think it’s always good to put your explanation in a historic vote such as this,” said Senator Edgardo Angara. “This is a momentous occasion.”

 

Penalty: Removal or censure?

 

Oddly enough, the Senate Rules on Impeachment do not provide for a penalty upon conviction.

 

The 1987 Constitution provides that the penalty in an impeachment case is removal from office and perpetual disqualification from holding any public office. But in previous impeachment cases in the United States of America–where the Philippine system of impeachment is based–the alternative penalty of censure has been imposed which allows the impeached official to stay in office.

 

In the Unites States, the trial jury comes up with a verdict and the judge later promulgates a sentence imposing the applicable penalty. Here in the Philippines, there is no trial by jury and so the judge comes up with both the verdict and the sentence (penalty) at the same time.

 

Before the closing arguments began on Monday, the Senate decided to hold a caucus to decide on whether a penalty less than removal would be allowed in the Corona impeachment trial. —VS, GMA News