With the highlight of the week being the Court’s vote to lower the voting threshold.
In the twelfth week of the Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, there were two main talking points.
First, on September 21 or the 27th day of the proceedings, the prosecution presented Securities and Exchange Commission Company Registration and Monitoring Department Director Gerardo del Rosario.
Initially, documents of Pikimong Pikimong Philippines Corp. and JTC Group of Companies were included in Del Rosario’s testimony, but the defense counsel objected, citiing that there are no established links with Vice President and her husband Atty. Mans Carpio.
Presiding officer Francis Escudero sustained this, but said that Del Rosario may testify on the two businesses once the prosecution is able to show proof of connection.
Del Rosario testified on Duterte’s supposed business interest in Metro City Chow Foods Corp. — where the Vice President was listed as an incorporator and served as part of the board of directors between 2018 and 2025.
He also testified that according to the Constitution says that the President, Vice President, Cabinet members, as well as their deputies and assistants, are cannot have business interests to avoid conflict of interest.
Another one mentioned is the Cale88 Food Corp., , where Atty. Carpio is an incorporator, director and holds 40% stake in the company.
Meanwhile, during the cross-examination of the defense counsel the following day, the 28th day of the trial, Del Rosario answered in the affirmative that there is no law expressly prohibiting a public officer’s spouse to have interests in a corporation or business, nor is he prohibited from practicing his profession.
He also noted that the SEC has no information or personal knowledge if Duterte was actively involved in the management or decision making of the 16 identified corporations.
Moreover, the Commission has no information if Duterte participated in the review and submission of any General Information Sheet (GIS) of the companies or other document such as the Audited Financial Statements.
Following that, the Prosecution presented their next witness, Rendell Sopeña, the Division Chief of the Electronic Government Procurement Operations Division (EGPOD) at the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PHILGEPS).
According to him Gencorp Industries, Inc. — whose primary purpose of this business is to operate a restaurant, according to the prior witness. — has a contract with OWWA Region XI, 33 contracts with PhilHealth Region XI, and 15 contracts with the City of Davao.
The biggest subscriber of shares of Gencorp is JTC Group of Companies, which is then linked to Jaime Cruz — who formerly served as the Special Envoy to China for Trade and Investment during the time of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Cruz’s name also appears in other articles of incorporation discussed prior.
Cross-examination of the defense counsel will happen on Monday, September 28.
Meanwhile, the other, perhaps the biggest, highlight of the entire week is the Senate Impeachment Court’s vote on whether to lower the threshold needed to convict the Vice President.
But before that, the oral arguments between both sides happened.
The Prosecution, represented by Rep. Chel Diokno, argued that maintaining the number of 16, which is two-thirds of the Senate’s 24-member body, is “absurd.”
He told that keeping the threshold for conviction at that count would mean that senator-judges who were not able to take oath, detained or suspended, will be equal to having an acquittal by default.
Diokno also brought up the Avelino v. Cuenco, where the quorum is decided on circumstances and are not automatically based on the count of 24.
For the defense’s part, Atty. Michael Poa insisted that the Constitution provided that it the vote must be two-thirds of “all members of the Senate.”
Eventually, the 20 senator-judges present during the important day, with 13 voting in the affirmative to change the threshold, while there was one negative vote that came from Presiding Officer Francis Escudero.
Six, meanwhile, opted to not participate in the vote (Senator-judges Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, Bong Go, Imee Marcos, Robinhood Padilla, and Camille Villar).
The vote overturns the earlier ruling of Escudero on the first day of the trial on July 6. Although, he was clear that this voting threshold is only applicable to this specific trial and is not binding to any future impeachment proceedings.
To understand clearly, there were no fixed amount of votes that were set in stone. Instead, a calculation will be made to compute the two-thirds of the members of the Senate present on the day of the vote.
Hence, if Senators Ronald Dela Rosa (who remains in hiding), Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada (currently detained), and Loren Legarda (on medical leave) are able to participate, the Court will still account them.
But if the attendance during that day becomes lower than the current 20 senator judges, the computation of the two-thirds of members present will be made, which will be rounded up to the nearest whole number if there is a decimal.
