Three former Supreme Court chief justices and one retired associate justice sat before the Senate impeachment court on Wednesday to answer a question that sounds simple until you actually have to count: how many votes does it take to convict a Vice President?
Retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna's answer was blunt. Sixteen. Not "however many senators happen to be in the room," not "two-thirds of a quorum" — sixteen votes out of the Senate's full membership of 24, no matter who's present, who's abroad, or who's simply decided not to show up.
"All Means All"
Azcuna anchored his position in the literal text of Article XI, Section 3(6) of the 1987 Constitution, which requires conviction by "two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate" — not two-thirds of those present and voting. For Azcuna, the word "all" is doing real constitutional work.
"As long as they are members of the Senate, they constitute the denominator in computing the two-thirds threshold because all means all," Azcuna told the court. He added that the only three ways a senator drops out of that denominator are death, removal from office, or resignation. Being absent, being abroad, or being under suspension doesn't cut it.
That's a notably higher bar than the one the Senate itself applied just three months earlier — when a 12- or 13-senator quorum was deemed sufficient to install Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate president during June's leadership standoff, on the theory that senators outside the chamber's practical jurisdiction (one on suspension, one evading an arrest warrant) shouldn't count in the denominator at all. Azcuna was among the law deans who defended that reasoning at the time. His testimony this week draws a sharp line between that quorum question and the impeachment conviction question — in his view, entirely different constitutional text, entirely different rule.
Lacson's Hypothetical
The sharpest moment came when Sen. Panfilo Lacson pushed Azcuna on the practical consequences of his own position. Lacson asked him to imagine nine of the 24 senators stranded abroad during a prolonged war, leaving only 15 physically able to participate — while all 24 remained, on paper, full members of the Senate.
"Where will fairness to the Filipino people go in such a situation?" Lacson asked.
Azcuna didn't budge. If only 15 senators are available and the Constitution still demands 16 votes to convict, he said, "there can be no conviction" — not because a majority of the participating senators voted to acquit, but simply because the required threshold was never reached. He compared it to a Supreme Court case that fails to secure enough votes to strike down a law: the challenge doesn't succeed, regardless of how lopsided the vote among the justices who did participate might have been.
A Separate, Softer Line on Attendance
Azcuna was more flexible on a related but distinct question: whether a senator-judge who missed some of the impeachment hearings can still cast a vote. He called that an internal matter for the Senate's own rules to settle — but said that in the absence of a specific rule, he would lean toward letting such a senator vote anyway, since the proceedings are transcribed and on record. "I think, Your Honor, in case of doubt, I would allow such a person to vote because this tribunal is a tribunal of record," he said.
In other words: missing a hearing doesn't disqualify a vote. Missing entirely — through death, removal, or resignation — is the only thing that changes the math.
Why the Number Matters Now
The question isn't academic. With senators cycling through suspensions, foreign travel, and the aftermath of June's leadership fight, the impeachment court has spent as much time on procedural arithmetic as on the substance of the case against Duterte. Azcuna's testimony, delivered alongside retired chief justices Artemio Panganiban, Hilario Davide, and Reynato Puno, leaves the Senate with a considerably less forgiving path to conviction than the flexible headcount it used to sort out its own leadership. It also puts pressure on any senator considering an extended absence: under Azcuna's reading, staying away doesn't shrink the number needed to convict — it only makes reaching it harder.