Retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban raised questions of truth and fairness over whether the two-thirds vote required to convict in the impeachment trial should be based on all 24 senators or only those participating in the proceedings.
Panganiban said determining the number of votes to convict cannot always rely on “abstract arithmetic” alone, which makes two-thirds of the 24-member Senate 16. Reality can change the denominator in mathematics, he said.
“In the same way, constitutional interpretation cannot always stop at abstract mathematics,” he said.
He asked whether it is truthful and fair to allow senators to cast their votes despite being absent from the proceedings because they were in hiding, abroad, legally detained, sick, or hospitalized.
He also asked if they should be counted when they were unable to examine documents, hear testimonies, or observe the demeanor of witnesses.
“To put it more picturesquely, Your Honor. Is it truthful and fair to the parties, to our country, and to our people, to allow those abroad, those looking at the pyramids along the Nile, or shopping in the fashion houses of Paris, or riding the romantic gondolas of Venice, or deliberately hiding in the dark corners of the world, while everyone here, everyone here in this hall, is sweating it out, listening to sometimes irrelevant and loquacious lawyers, or to humble and ancient amicus curiae like me?” he said.
Panganiban said the Senate’s constitutional duty to try and decide impeachment cases cannot always be reduced to “abstract arithmetic,” and neither can it be carried out in the “shadows of absence” nor from legal impediments.
“As the elected representatives of the Filipino people, your honor’s mandate, in my humble opinion, demands a commonsensical, I repeat, commonsensical interpretation of the Constitution. Indeed, meaningful adjudication requires active participation in the search for truth and fairness,” he said.
“I respectfully submit that only in this manner, can your honors ensure a verdict that is fair to the parties, fair to your honor’s peers, and ultimately, fair to our sovereign people,” he added
Panganiban is one of the amici curiae invited by the Senate to shed light on what should be the basis for determining the two-thirds vote to convict in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.