Ortega: SC petitions won't hinder prosecution preparations for Sara Duterte trial

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The petitions seeking to overturn the impeachment court’s ruling on the vote threshold for Vice President Sara Duterte’s conviction will not hinder the prosecution’s preparations for the impeachment trial, House Deputy Speaker and La Union Rep. Paolo Ortega V said Sunday.

“Every move by the [House] committee and every development in the impeachment proceedings always draws questions from the defense. These will not hinder the prosecution’s preparations. This has already been anticipated,” Ortega told Super Radyo dzBB in Filipino.

“With or without the Supreme Court’s decision, the trial will continue,” he added.

This came after former Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez asked the Supreme Court to declare null and void the Senate impeachment court’s September 23 ruling on the voting threshold in Duterte’s impeachment trial.

He also asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order against the ruling, which changed the basis for calculating the two-thirds vote needed for conviction from all 24 senators to senators who are legally and factually capable of participating in the proceedings.

Rodriguez argued that the Constitution sets the voting threshold at two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, which would be 16 votes if all 24 senators are counted.

Meanwhile, lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr. asked the Supreme Court to issue a Status Quo Ante Order (SQAO) reversing the changes that took effect following the impeachment court’s ruling.

“It is most respectfully prayed that upon the filing of this Petition, a Status Quo Ante Order be issued directing the parties to maintain the last actual, peaceable and uncontested state of affairs that existed before the present controversy,” the petition’s prayer read.

“It is further prayed of the Honorable Court that the proceedings conducted on 23 September 2026 that led to the issuance of the Ruling be declared null and void,” it added.

On Wednesday, the Senate impeachment court voted to base the two-thirds vote needed to convict Duterte on the number of senators who are capable of “legally and factually participating in the impeachment proceedings.”

Thirteen senator-judges voted in favor of the motion filed by Senator-judge Erwin Tulfo, who sought to overturn the July 6 ruling after several senators became unavailable to participate in the impeachment trial.

Under the new rule, senators who are detained, medically or physically incapacitated, legally restrained from performing their functions, being sought by authorities with their whereabouts unknown, or otherwise beyond the Senate’s coercive processes may be excluded from the voting base.

Among those who have been largely absent from the proceedings are Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta, who are detained over separate plunder charges; Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court; and Loren Legarda, who has been on prolonged medical leave abroad.— Mariel Celine Serquiña/MCG, GMA News