Impeachment court set to convene, but could another Senate coup delay it?

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate, fresh from last week’s leadership coup, is scheduled to convene as an impeachment court later on Monday, March 18, but whether things will proceed as scheduled remains to be seen.

The court, if officially formed, will be tasked to hold a trial to determine whether Vice President Sara Duterte is guilty of the impeachable offenses hurled at her by the House of Representatives.

The 11-person prosecution team in the House was originally scheduled to go to the Senate to watch it convene as an impeachment court.

But what could go wrong?

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano has already committed to convene the court on Monday in a letter he had sent to House Speaker Bojie Dy. He also formally notified his colleagues on Friday, May 15, about Monday’s main agenda.

But coup rumors persisted, especially in the wake of a gunfire between the Senate Office of Sergeant-at-Arms and the National Bureau of Investigation within Senate premises last week. With Senator Bato dela Rosa in hiding and Senator Robin Padilla’s attendance up in the air, his 13-member majority is reduced to 11.

This means that anyone can move to declare all posts vacant again, although it is unclear if anyone can anyone secure the magic number 13 — the majority of a 24-person Senate.

The talks of a potential leadership shakeup in the Senate complicated the House’s original plan to be in the upper chamber.

The prosecution team has canceled its plan to hold an 11 am press conference on Monday morning, May 18, ahead of the scheduled convening. Prosecutors had met at 10 am to discuss whether to proceed with their plan to go to the Senate.

Mamamayang Liberal Representative Leila de Lima and Manila 3rd District Representative Joel Chua, in separate interviews, said House prosecutors have yet to receive a formal invitation from the Senate to attend the convening of the impeachment court.

“We will discuss if we will just submit an entry of appearance,” Chua told TV5’s Frontline sa Umaga.

Another scenario involves Cayetano being retained Senate president, but with another effort on his group’s end to delay the trial.

Last year, the Senate convened as an impeachment court, but it did not proceed with a full-blown trial after a majority decided to remand the impeachment case back to the House due to supposed “constitutional infirmities.”

The Supreme Court later declared the impeachment of Sara Duterte unconstitutional, after which the Senate “archived” the case.

These moves — the remanding and archiving — are not specifically stated in the Senate’s impeachment rules.

Several senators in Cayetano’s majority bloc, including himself, have ties to Duterte, and were part of efforts to delay or block the Vice President’s impeachment trial at the Senate in 2025.

Cayetano said on Thursday, May 14, that the 13-person majority would not oppose the convening of the impeachment court.

“So far, for us 13, there’s no reason why not to convene [and] take our oaths on Monday,” Cayetano had said. – Rappler.com