How will a detained senator affect impeachment? Ex-Justice, NUPL weigh in

Amid talks of reducing the number of votes needed to convict an impeached official, retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna said a senator’s suspension or detention does not affect the threshold for conviction.

According to Azcuna, a senator’s suspension may affect the quorum, as the majority of the Senate would include only those who can effectively participate.

However, he said it does not affect the votes required for conviction in impeachment proceedings, which the Constitution sets at two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.

This means that 16 votes are needed for conviction and only nine votes for acquittal.

“Where the law does not distinguish, neither should we distinguish. The law says “all” the members,” the retired justice told GMA News Online.

"In Avelino [case], the wording 'all' the members was not involved. The wording involved there was ‘majority of the Senate.’ The Court said that’s different from ‘majority of all the members of the Senate’,” he added.

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This came after House lead prosecutor Representative Gerville Luistro urged a study on whether the SC’s ruling in Avelino v. Cuenco, which recognized a reduced quorum under certain circumstances, may be applied to voting in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Luistro questioned whether senators who are in hiding, in detention, or outside the country truly represent the public.

Though Luistro did not name them, Senator Jinggoy Estrada was recently arrested over plunder charges, while Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa has disappeared from the public eye amid the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him.

NUPL's take

Meanwhile, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers head Ephraim Cortez said it is not clear whether the Avelino case may serve as the basis for the votes needed for conviction.

“Avelino was a discussion on what constitutes a sufficient quorum for the Senate to conduct its business. There is no ruling yet on how the requirement for a conviction requires a ‘2/3 votes of all the members’,” he said.

However, Cortez said that the general rule in parliamentary procedure is that the required number of votes is determined by the number of members entitled to vote.

“Applying this, the 'two-thirds of all the Members’ required to convict should be based on the number of Senators who are entitled to vote,” he said.

Cortez said that Estrada cannot vote while Dela Rosa placed himself outside the compulsive authority of the Senate.

“Since Sen. Estrada has been suspended, he cannot vote; as such, he is not included in determining the number of votes needed to convict,” he said.

“As to Sen. Dela Rosa, the wisdom of the Avelino ruling justifies its application to his case. While he is entitled to vote, he cannot, and is obviously unwilling to participate. He placed himself outside the compulsive authority of the Senate, for which the Senate is not in a position to compel him, through arrest, to attend the proceedings,” he added. —VAL, GMA News