ASEANEWS HEADLINE-VP Du30 IMPEACHMENT | MANILA: ‘20 senators to abide by SC impeach ruling’
Senate President “Chiz” Escudero
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Estrada: 20 senators may vote to abide by SC ruling on Sara impeachment trial | ANC
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MANILA, Philippines — There are “around 19 to 20” senators who want to abide by the Supreme Court ruling striking down as unconstitutional the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada said.
Estrada, whose father Joseph Estrada was impeached as president, estimated that he and the other senators are for following the Supreme Court (SC) ruling that blocked the trial ostensibly because of the House of Representatives’ violation of the ban on initiating more than one impeachment complaint within one year.
“The Supreme Court is the highest court of the land. Their decision is executory and it forms part of the fundamental law of the land. So we have to abide with the ruling,” Estrada said Thursday night.
Other senators, however, cautioned that the SC ruling could not be considered final until motions for reconsideration have been entertained and resolved. A petition for MR was filed yesterday by a civil society group, with another expected to be filed next week by the House of Representatives.
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Until a final ruling bars the impeachment, the Senate must zzcarry out its constitutional duty to proceed with the trial, according to some of the senators.
Estrada said the prevailing sentiment among the senators is “to abide by the ruling” instead of pushing through with the convening of the impeachment court next week.
The Senate will instead discuss the SC decision during a regular plenary session on Aug. 6 and vote whether or not to throw out the impeachment case following the ruling, Estrada said.
“There will be no more trial because the Supreme Court said the Senate has no jurisdiction over the unconstitutional complaint filed by the House of Representatives,” he said.
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“The Senate will not convene as the impeachment court because we don’t have jurisdiction anymore,” he added.
The Senate will only convene the impeachment court if the SC grants the motion for reconsideration to be filed by the House of Representatives.
“If a motion for reconsideration is filed and the ruling reversed, then we will abide with the ruling,” Estrada said.
The Senate has no choice but to follow the SC lest it wants to start a constitutional crisis, Estrada stated.
“If we will not abide, we are going to flirt with a constitutional crisis. What will happen next? There will be chaos,” he said.
“I beg to disagree that the Senate impeachment court is more powerful than the Supreme Court,” he added.
If Estrada is to be believed, then the prevailing sentiment in the Senate is to no longer push through with trial, despite a draft resolution that is circulating seeking their support to call on the SC to reconsider its decision.
Senate minority leader Vicente Sotto III and Senators Risa Hontiveros, Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino signed the draft resolution, which called for the application of the “Doctrine of Operative Facts.”
This basically means the Senate should still push through with trial and presume regularity in the House of Representatives’ application of the previous definition of the one-year bar rule before the SC redefined it in the latest decision.
Pangilinan, who is in charge of routing the draft resolution, said the SC ruling “does not become final until a motion for reconsideration is resolved.”
He called on his colleagues not to throw out the impeachment case just yet pending a decision on an appeal.
“If 19 or 20 are to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court, we should, at the very least, hold in abeyance any vote to dismiss until the motion for reconsideration is resolved, so the Senate will know exactly what final ruling we are to abide by and respect,” said Pangilinan, a lawyer.
Senate minority leader Sotto said the body count of 19 to 20 senators in favor of following the SC is just Estrada’s opinion “because most of us have not heard the flaws and questionable points in the Supreme Court decision.”
“Let’s wait and see,” Sotto added.
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