The Senate impeachment court has redefined what "two-thirds" means in the trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, and the new math cuts two votes off the number prosecutors need to convict her.
Sitting as an impeachment court on Sept. 23, senator-judges voted 13-1, with six not participating, to rule that the two-thirds threshold for conviction should be computed only from senator-judges who are legally able to take part in the trial — not from the Senate's full membership of 24. Presiding Officer and Senate President Francis Escudero laid out the new formula: "The remaining [qualified] members shall then constitute the denominator from which the required two-thirds concurrence shall be computed." With four senators currently unable to participate, that drops the number of votes needed to convict Duterte from 16 to 14, according to Interaksyon/PhilStar.
The four senators being excluded from the denominator did not recuse themselves by choice. Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are both detained, Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa is a fugitive wanted on an International Criminal Court warrant, and Loren Legarda is on medical leave, according to GMA News. In other words, the court has decided that a defendant's conviction math should shrink precisely when the bench happens to be missing members who might have voted her way — Estrada and Marcoleta are allies who would presumably back Duterte, and dela Rosa's absence removes another potential acquittal vote. Whether that is coincidence or convenience is a question the ruling itself does not address, and Escudero was careful to say it doesn't have to: he stressed the reinterpretation applies only to Duterte's trial and "shall not constitute a binding precedent in any future impeachment proceeding."
That carve-out matters, because the rule change reverses ground the court staked out just weeks ago. On July 6, the impeachment court fixed the threshold at 16 votes — two-thirds of all 24 senators, full stop. That was also the position retired Supreme Court Justice Adolfo Azcuna defended under questioning from Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Sept. 18, telling the court flatly that "all means all" and that no conviction was possible without 16 votes regardless of how many senators were present. Five days later, the court moved off that position anyway.
Michael Henry Yusingco, a senior research fellow at the Ateneo Policy Center, did not mince words about what the shift means for the case: "This is the best chance to secure a conviction," he told Interaksyon/PhilStar. Duterte faces impeachment charges accusing her of misusing public funds, amassing unexplained wealth and threatening the lives of President Marcos, the First Lady and a former House Speaker. She has denied wrongdoing throughout. A conviction would bar her from holding public office — removing a sitting vice president and a leading 2028 presidential contender from the field in one stroke, which is precisely why every procedural number in this trial is being fought over as hard as the evidence itself.
Neither Duterte's legal team nor the prosecution panel is quoted in available wire reports responding specifically to Monday's ruling — an omission worth watching, given how aggressively both sides have contested every threshold argument so far.
Context
The threshold fight has run alongside separate testimony in the trial about Duterte's finances, including SALN disclosures and an SEC filing showing her name on the board of a food company years into her term. Pulpulitiko has covered the Sept. 18 Azcuna testimony defending the fixed 16-vote position and the postponement of a subpoena for Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte, her brother, to Sept. 28-30. Monday's ruling on the voting formula is a procedural decision, not a verdict on the merits — but it changes the arithmetic of every vote still to come.
Sources
- Impeachment court lowers voting threshold to convict impeached official — GMA News Online
- Senate lowers threshold for conviction in VP Duterte's impeachment trial — Interaksyon/PhilStar