The Senate impeachment court. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News/File
MANILA — A former chief justice on Wednesday said the decimal point should be rounded off based on mathematical rules if the Senate applies a moving conviction threshold in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The 1987 Constitution requires the votes of at least “two-thirds of all the members of the Senate" to convict Duterte.
The court on Wednesday invited retired Chief Justices Hilario Davide Jr., Artemio Panganiban, Reynato Puno and retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna as amici curiae or “friends of the court” to provide their legal opinions on the number of votes required to convict the vice president.
Panganiban, who is among the three amici curiae who said the term “two-thirds” in the Constitution may be lowered based on the number of senator-judges present in the impeachment proceedings, said the court should apply the mathematical rules in rounding off if the voting threshold ends up with a decimal point.
Ex-CJ Panganiban asks: Can senators be impeachment judges 'in the shadows of absence?'
Trial presiding officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero asked Panganiban: “What if it’s 23 and two-thirds is 15.33? What if it’s 22 and two-thirds is 14.66? How do we treat the decimal points?”
“In the abstract science of math, we round off. If it is more than half, then we round off to the higher number. If it’s less than half, we round off to the lower number,” Panganiban responded.
This means that among 23 or 22 senator-judges, a conviction would need at least 15 votes.
“That’s not my position, Your Honor. That’s the mathematical position,” Panganiban said.
PHYSICAL PRESENCE
The former chief justice earlier stressed that senator-judges should be physically present in the trial to see whether witnesses are telling the truth and that all sides are given the opportunity to explain.
Escudero, later in the trial, raised that rounding down the decimal point makes the threshold lower than two-thirds.
“For example, two-thirds of 23 members is 15.33. If I take the lower number, 15, by any mathematical computation will not reach two-thirds,” he said.
Azcuna said the Supreme Court has ruled to ignore fractions when computing the required number for a decision.
“There is no such thing as half an office or a fraction of an office,” Azcuna said, citing the 1998 case of Defensor-Santiago v. Guingona.
The former associate justice also stressed: “It is not a matter of favoring anybody, it is a matter of computing fractions. And according to that decision, the practical way of dealing with fractions is to ignore them.”
Puno seconded Azcuna and said, “In mathematics, 2 + 2 = 4. In constitutional law, 2 + 2 may equal 5."
He also underscored that how the court would deal with the fraction is a political decision and cannot be questioned by any court.
“Whatever is the decision of the Senate impeachment tribunal is correct,” he said.
The impeachment court discusses the voting threshold as several senator-judges fail to attend proceedings for various reasons.
Sens. Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada are both detained over plunder cases, while Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa remains in hiding, dodging an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
Sen. Loren Legarda meanwhile is still abroad due to a “medical leave,” which began on August 3.
Sara Duterte trial: What retired justices said on conviction threshold
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