A DIMWITTED lawmaker, notoriously known for advocating bending or breaking the law to get a desired result, is at his foolish best again. He has asked the impeachment court to change the language of the Constitution. More specifically, he wants the tribunal to alter the constitutional provision prescribing the threshold of 16 senator-judges, or two-thirds of all 24 senators, for a conviction of an impeachable officer being tried.
The constitutional provision in question is Article XI, Section 6, providing, among others, to wit: “(6) x x x x No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.”
The quoted constitutional provision is plain and crystal clear enough, leaving absolutely no room for interpretation. The command is explicit; there can be no conviction without the required two-thirds concurring vote of all the members of the Senate. There are 24 members of the Senate. Unless a senator dies, resigns or is expelled from the august body, the number of senators remains unchanged. Each senator has the right and the obligation to participate in the deliberation of any pending bill or in any investigation in aid of legislation conducted by Senate. Each has the same right and duty to take part in the hearing of an impeachable officer as a member of the impeachment court. Such right and duty are not waived because he is in jail by reason of being charged in court and denied the right to bail owing to the nature of the charge or because the evidence is strong. Nor are they divested if he or she is out of the country, or is in the hospital due to serious illness, or is a fugitive from justice. The right and duty to vote on the conviction or acquittal of an impeachable is attached to the senator and cannot be removed from him for as long as he/she remains a senator.
The present attempt by a member of the impeachment court to alter the constitutional command of requiring two-thirds, or 16, of the 24 senators’ vote to get a conviction, and the acquiescence by a majority of the members of the impeachment court is foolhardy, as the impeachment court’s insistence and laying the foundation in altering the threshold number is a prelude to violating the Constitution.
Impeachment court absolutely has no power to alter Constitution
There are only three ways, as directed by the Constitution, to amend the provisions therein (Article XVII, Constitution): calling a constitutional convention (Sec. 1 (1)), convening the houses of Congress as a constituent assembly (Sec. 1 (2)), and people’s initiative (Sec. 1 (3)).
Outside of those said modes of amending the Constitution, any amendment thereto in any manner is ultra vires, or unconstitutional.
Apart from its malicious intent, it is fallacy to argue that the impeachment court, being sui generis and the exclusive constitutional body to hear and decide an impeachment complaint against an impeachable officer, can change the language of the Constitution in the matter of the required number of votes necessary for conviction. The impeachment court is just a creation of the Constitution and cannot rise over its source. The manner by which any provision of the Constitution is changed is outlined in the Constitution, and the power to determine and to vote upon the method to be applied in amending or revising it is exclusively lodged in Congress.
The impeachment court cannot tinker with the Constitution and alter it as it pleases. At the risk of unnecessarily prolonging its proceedings, the senator-judges can debate and discuss the wisdom and necessity to amend a particular constitutional provision concerning its proceedings till their voices run dry or their lungs collapse — but they cannot vote on the issue of lowering the required vote for conviction in an impeachment trial without blatantly transgressing the Constitution.
Lowering threshold for conviction is option 3
Of course, there is a sub rosa raison d’être for the proposed plan to reduce the voting threshold for conviction. The brains behind the ouster of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte and the latter’s disqualification to run for president in the 2028 presidential elections are making sure their devious goal succeeds. They have five options to effect its success. Plan A is the filing of the impeachment complaint. They realize that getting the 16 votes is improbable, if not impossible. Four rabid anti-Sara and two notorious advocates for lawbending and lawbreaking certainly will not vote for exoneration. Two somersaulting political chameleons may be compelled to negate an acquittal to escape incarceration but their combined votes are short of the required number. Even if two or three others will join them for various compelling political reasons, their number is still not enough to convict. As an insurance, these masterminds have effected Plan B, which is the filing of the crime of grave threats that carries, owing to the cybercrime law, an accessory penalty of perpetual disqualification, in case of conviction.
As a further insurance to succeed in their devious plan, they have commenced to reduce the required threshold for conviction by initiating it in the impeachment court, no matter how it violates the Constitution.
What if the said three options fail and VP Sara will still be able to run for president in 2028?
There are two other alternatives, Plan D and Plan E. Plan D would be to persuade and convince the powers-that-be to impose emergency rule and cancel the presidential elections. Since such drastic move could trigger a political upheaval, these secret planners could instead pursue Plan D, which is the physical obliteration of VP Sara and make it look like an accident or deliberate elimination; whichever way, VP Sara will be permanently silenced and out of the running in 2028. This is the reason why she has expressed repeatedly her mortal fear of being assassinated. Her life is imminently at risk.
Will the people allow this gruesome and deathly scenario?
History in this country keeps repeating itself. We never learn from this lesson.
