Sotto insists divorce bill was approved incorrectly: That’s not legal

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MANILA, Philippines — Former Senate president Vicente Sotto III believes the House of Representatives correction of the voting tally for a bill seeking to reinstate divorce — which was approved on the third reading on Wednesday — was not legal.

Sotto in a tweet on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday questioned the announcement from House of Representatives Secretary General Reginald Velasco, which stated that the correct vote count for House Bill (HB) No. 9349 or the proposed Absolute Divorce Act was 131 lawmakers voting in the affirmative, 109 in the negative, and 20 abstentions.

READ: House revises ‘yes’ vote on divorce bill’s approval to 131 from 126

“Passed incorrectly!  Now they are changing the numbers out of plenary?  That’s not legal!” Sotto said.

“When a parliamentary body reports a vote in plenary then changes the following morning not in plenary, ano tawag dun? Sumabit! And they have the tenacity to say I was wrong!” he added.

(When a parliamentary body reports a vote in plenary then changes the following morning not in plenary, what do you call that? They messed up! And they have the tenacity to say I was wrong!)

Passed incorrectly! Now they are changing the numbers out of plenary? That’s not legal! https://t.co/shXReZBcTp

— Tito Sotto (@sotto_tito) May 23, 2024

In a separate message to INQUIRER.net, Sotto said it seems the House is cheating itself.

“Binabago ng House ang boto this morning. 131 daw ang yes. Akala ko ba mali ako? Dinadaya nila sarili nila,” Sotto told INQUIRER.net in a text message.

(The House changed the vote this morning.  They said 131 were yes votes. I thought I was wrong?  They are cheating themselves.)

“They realized I was right!” he added.

Sotto on Wednesday raised concerns about the approval of HB No. 9349. He claimed that the bill was passed by the House without getting a sufficient number of votes—less than half of lawmakers present voted in the affirmative.

READ: Sotto says divorce bill lacked votes in House; Lagman says abstentions not counted 

Sotto explained that the 126 lawmakers who voted in favor of the proposal were less than half of the quorum, or the members who participated in the proceedings.

Since HB No. 9349 was originally approved with a tally of 126-109-20 (affirmative-negative-abstention), 255 lawmakers participated in the voting process. Sotto believes that for HB No. 9349 to be approved on third reading, 128 lawmakers—over half of the 255—should have given the thumbs-up.

Since no corrections were made in the negative votes and abstentions, as mentioned in the plenary, the number of lawmakers involved in the voting process increased from 255 to 260—which means a majority vote, following Sotto’s logic, will be 131.

Now, with the new tally, it appears that 260 lawmakers participated in the voting process — which means following Sotto’s logic, the majority vote should be 131.

This is exactly the same number of yes votes in the corrected vote count.

READ: House approves divorce bill on final reading 

Staunch divorce advocate and Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman meanwhile said that the rule of the House is simple — if the yes votes are more than the no votes, the bill is approved.

“Anyway, whether or not the margin is big or small, a win is a win, right?” he added.