Senators want to cut impeach trial to 3 hours

2 HEADS BETTER THAN ONE Senator-judges Frank Drilon and Jinggoy Estrada in a huddle on Day 9 of the impeachment trial.

The relatively long hours of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona could be taking their toll on some of the Senate’s most senior members.

Senator Joker Arroyo on Tuesday proposed on the floor that the court trim the duration of the trial from four hours to three hours. Most of the senators, including Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, were agreeable to the proposal.

In the end, however, the chamber reached a consensus to leave the discretion of adjourning the hearings at around 5 p.m., instead of 6 p.m., to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

“The schedule is heavy. The attention span does not last more than three hours. The other thing is most of us are senior citizens. We can’t stay that long. After the hearing, we have to review, and appraise the evidence submitted,” Sotto said by phone.

The senators way past 60 years old are Arroyo, Enrile, Sotto, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Franklin Drilon, Gregorio Honasan II, Panfilo Lacson, Sergio Osmeña, Edgardo Angara and Manuel Villar Jr.

Tiresome

In the past eight hearing days, the trial ran from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., which proved too tiresome for some senators who also had to attend sessions in the morning to tackle bills twice a week.

The senators also approved Santiago’s proposal that they reset their sessions for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to free up Monday mornings for their caucus, effective next week.

For the past three weeks of trial, the senators held sessions on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

Some senators have found their schedule every Monday too heavy, since they had to hold sessions and then meet for a caucus before proceeding to the trial, Sotto said.

With the new setup, the senators will hold sessions at 9 a.m. to 12 noon every Tuesday and Wednesday, except when they convene the Commission on Appointments on Wednesdays, when the session will be held at 11 a.m. to  12 noon.

The schedule of the trial remains the same—from Monday to Thursday.

During Tuesday’s plenary session, Arroyo, 84, manifested that the trial be stopped at 5 p.m. because of concerns that the trial had eaten up into the senators’ deliberations on pieces of legislation, including the reproductive health bill.

Alarmed

“I’m alarmed at what is happening in the House. They’re saying they will file another impeachment case. We have 16 hours of impeachment [a week] and four hours for legislation,” Arroyo said.

Senator Pia Cayetano said the trial could be fast-tracked “if we can prevent the prosecution from grandstanding.”

Sought for comment later, Enrile, who is turning 88 on February 14, and has presided over the trial four hours a day and four days a week, said he was “amenable” to adjourn the trial by 5 p.m., but didn’t mind going beyond it.

“I am amenable to trying it even beyond, if that is the pleasure of the Senate,” he told reporters.

Sotto’s discretion

The senators, however, did not put Arroyo’s manifestation to a vote, and merely agreed to give Sotto the discretion of adjourning the hearing by 5 p.m., with Enrile’s concurrence.

“I just asked for blanket authority… to play it by ear. By 5 o’clock, I will sense if we need to adjourn or not, in accordance with the Senate President. If the testimony is serious, then let’s extend. Otherwise, I will move to adjourn. There is no hard and fast rule on the 5 p.m. adjournment,” Sotto said.

Indeed, striking a balance between their legislative work and the trial was tough.

“Well, necessarily we have to accept that because we double the efforts of the Senate,” Enrile said when asked about his colleague’s concerns that the legislative work had been tied up by the trial.

“Of course in the House, they’re freer but here in the Senate we are saddled with two distinct functions, trying an impeachment case and at the same time, attending to our legislative work, and also our confirmation authority.”

Originally posted: 6:51 pm | Tuesday, January 31st, 2012