Padilla warns 'law benders': Minority may skip impeach trial soon if tinkering with Constitution continues
Members of the Senate minority bloc have no plans to boycott the impeachment trial, but Senator Robin Padilla suggested Sunday that such a scenario may arise if they perceive any “bending of the law.”
The statement came amid noticeably low attendance by their group in the past few weeks following amendments to the 16-vote threshold, which effectively lower the bar for convicting and removing Vice President Sara Duterte from office.
“There's no such discussion [to skip impeachment in the minority], but it may come to that soon,” he said in Filipino in a radio interview.
The minority lawmaker refused to label their group as the minority to preserve the neutrality of the impeachment proceedings, instead preferring to call their bloc “pro-Constitution.”
Padilla noted that there have been “surprising” or unpredictable developments in the ongoing trial, which highlights the need to uphold the Constitution firmly.
“We, the pro-Constitution, believe that we should obey the Constitution…We don't want it to get bent. If the bending of the law doesn’t stop, we might really reach a point where we will no longer attend,” he pointed out.
Padilla admitted that he does not attend every trial and often monitors the proceedings on television to attend to other legislative duties, though he noted that another factor is that he is still awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling on their petition challenging the new threshold.
He emphasized that the Constitution should not be tinkered with and that he is holding off on certain actions until the SC rules on whether he should accept the proposed threshold.
Members of the PDP-Laban, led by Padilla and Senator Bong Go, petitioned the Supreme Court last week to halt enforcement of the 23 September ruling that amended the 6 July decision. The initial verdict set the required votes for conviction at 16, despite the absence of their colleagues from the minority, who are either detained, in hiding, or in abroad.
Under the 23 September decision, the Senate impeachment court will base the constitutionally mandated two-thirds requirement on the concurrence of members who, at the time of voting, are legally and factually capable of participating in the impeachment proceedings.
As a result, senator-judges who are detained, suspended, suffering from physical or medical incapacity, whose whereabouts are unknown, and beyond the Senate’s coercive reach will be excluded in the computation.
Like the defense, members of the Senate opposition bloc contended that the absence of their minority peers does not automatically create a vacancy warranting an amendment to the 16-vote threshold.
Padilla rejects another crossover
Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta are detained for plunder, while Senator Bato dela Rosa remains in hiding amid an International Criminal Court warrant. Senator Loren Legarda, meanwhile, remains on leave while seeking medical treatment abroad.
The formerly 11-member minority, led by Senator Alan Cayetano, dropped to 10 after Senator Mark Villar switched sides last week. The crossover further weakens Cayetano and allies’ firm opposition to lowering the conviction threshold for Duterte.
Padilla, however, said Villar’s defection from the minority—mostly composed of the so-called Duterte bloc— applies only to his legislative functions, not to his role as a senator-judge in the impeachment trial.
Senator Raffy Tulfo hinted that another minority solon may jump the majority’s ship, but Padilla said no one has signaled intent to leave their bloc yet.
“But we won't be offended by that because, to be honest, we're just a small minority from the start. They were the only ones who moved to us. We're not expecting them to be loyal all the way. That's how it is in the Senate,” he asserted.
Villar has not yet released an official statement on the crossover, though speculation suggests his move has something to do with the Ombudsman’s probe into graft and administrative complaints against members of the Villar family over their water utility company, PrimeWater.
Senators politically aligned with the administration denied that Villar’s abrupt switch of allegiance was linked to efforts to secure votes for the Vice President’s conviction.
Mark’s crossing the aisle no longer came as a surprise. He also broke with his former allies on 23 September as the lone member of the Senate minority bloc to vote in favor of reversing the 6 July ruling, which effectively lowered the bar to convict Sara Duterte from 16 votes.
Senate President Win Gatchalian and allies have denied lowering the threshold, claiming that the impeachment court still upheld the constitutionally mandated two-thirds requirement for a conviction because the new decision did not bar their absent colleagues from casting their votes on the day of judgment, tentatively set for December.
He said absent minority senators could vote as long as they were physically present in the impeachment courtroom, and that even senator-judges who attend the entire trial but are absent on judgment day can be excluded from voting.