Philippine Senate alters impeachment conviction threshold for VP Sara Duterte

The Philippine Senate impeachment court has voted to change the required threshold for convicting Vice President Sara Duterte. In a 13-1 vote, the court decided that the two-thirds majority required for conviction will no longer be based on the full 24-member Senate roster, which would have required 16 votes. Instead, the threshold will be a dynamic count based on the number of senator-judges legally and factually participating in the trial.

Under this new rule, the required votes for conviction have been lowered from 16 to 14, calculated against the 20 senator-judges currently deemed capable of participating. This decision follows a dispute over whether the denominator for the two-thirds requirement should include senators who are not participating in the proceedings. Senate President Pro-Tempore Francis “Chiz” Escudero cast the sole dissenting vote.

The shift has triggered immediate legal challenges before the Supreme Court regarding whether this adjustment adheres to the 1987 Constitution, which states that no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.