Gatchalian cites 2 ways to pull impeachment case out of Senate archive
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian —SENATE PRIB
MANILA, Philippines — It may only take a vote of five senators to pull the articles of impeachment from the archives and revive the case against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian shared this with the media on Friday, citing the rules of the Senate.
In the interview, the lawmaker said he reviewed the rules before voting on the motion to set aside the case and transfer it to the chamber’s archives.
READ: Senate-votes-to-archive-sara-duterte-impeachment-case
“Under our rules, with a vote of five senators, the impeachment can be brought back and placed in the order of business. So that could be the mechanism. I reviewed the rules before we voted. There is a mechanism under the rules to pull out the article of impeachment and include it in the order of business,” said Gatchalian.
But this would not be the only mode to pull out the articles of impeachment from the archives. Another method is suspending the Senate rules by a vote of majority.
“The other mode is by a vote of majority, we can suspend the rules. And then when we suspend the rules, we can vote to bring back the articles of impeachment and put it back to the order of business. So there are two modes to approach that,” he said.
Gatchalian said the vote of five senators would be applicable should the Supreme Court reverse its earlier ruling and uphold the motion for reconsideration filed by the House of Representatives.
Before voting on it, Gatchalian said a senator should make a motion considering the two modes: first is the five votes and the other is a vote by majority.
“Somebody has to file a motion, and then there are two modes. One of them is that five senators — one can file the motion, and the five can manifest their intention to retrieve the articles of impeachment from the archives and include them in the order of business. Once it’s in the order of business, it proceeds from there. The other option is to suspend the rules. One senator can move to suspend the rules, and then a majority vote can suspend the rules and retrieve the articles of impeachment from the archives,” he explained.
In the same interview, Gatchalian explained that it was the Supreme Court that “killed” the impeachment against Duterte and not the Senate.
“We have to make that distinction. We have to make that distinction that it’s the Supreme Court ruling that voided these articles of impeachment. So the Senate is dutifully bound,” he said, concluding that if the chamber goes against the ruling of the high court, a constitutional crisis awaits.
With a supermajority vote of 19, four negative, and one abstention, the Senate on August 6 archived the impeachment case against Duterte.
To archive means to set aside the case and pull it out of the chamber’s records if deemed necessary by majority.
Below is a list of the four lawmakers who voted against archiving the case:
- Senate Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III
- Sen. Risa Hontiveros
- Sen. Kiko Pangilinan
- Sen. Bam Aquino
Only Sen. Ping Lacson abstained from voting on the motion to archive the case. /mr
