This will go down in history. On September 23, the Senate impeachment court changed the voting rule in Sara Duterte’s trial. I had supported pursuing that trial before. I can no longer support the way it is being conducted now.
Before the proceedings began, I wanted the Vice President to have her day in court. Serious accusations should be examined, and I thought a trial would give her a fair chance to answer them. If the evidence proved the charges, the senator-judges should convict her. If it did not, they should acquit her. That seemed a sounder course than leaving the country to argue over allegations without ever hearing a verdict.
I have not changed my mind about the need to answer accusations. I changed my mind about whether this trial can still command my confidence. I have watched the fight over its rules grow as consequential as the evidence itself. When the people judging a case change the number of votes needed to convict, I cannot shrug and call it routine.
The Constitution says conviction requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. The impeachment court has now ruled that only senators legally and factually able to participate at the time of judgment will count toward that total. With four senators currently unable to take part, the votes needed for conviction would fall from 16 to 14. I read “all the Members” and see a serious question that arithmetic cannot brush aside.
I know the senators who favored the change have an argument: they say the two-thirds rule remains and that senators unable to participate should not keep the court from deciding the case. They deserve to be heard. But I also expect them to explain why those senators cannot vote, and why those who cannot vote should cease to count as members for this purpose. Until that question is answered convincingly, the decision looks to me like a rule fitted to the moment.
That is why I now see a political hand in these proceedings. It is my judgment, not a fact I can prove about every senator’s private motive. I dislike having to say it, because I wanted a verdict that even disappointed supporters could recognize as fair. Instead, I find myself wondering whether the people with the power to judge Duterte are also too eager to decide whether she can run in 2028.
None of this makes the allegations disappear. Duterte still has to answer them, and her accusers still have to prove them. My objection is to making conviction easier through a disputed reading of the rules while asking the public to trust the result. A trial can hold an official accountable only if its own conduct can bear the same close inspection it gives the accused.
I once believed this impeachment trial could settle a painful question. I would still welcome an honest answer to the charges, whichever way the evidence leads. For now, the Senate could begin to recover my trust by giving a full, persuasive account of its ruling and by letting any legal challenge run its course before treating the new threshold as beyond question.
