RETIRED Chief Justice Reynato Puno rejected on Wednesday a literal reading of the Constitution that would fix at 16 the votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, saying the count may change depending on certain factors.
“If we give this kind of reading to Article 11, Section 3(6), the threshold of 16 Senators to convict will be fixed and immutable. However, if that is the intent, Article 11, Section 3(6) should have simply stated that the number of votes to convict is 16, period,” Puno said.
Speaking before the Senate impeachment court, Puno pointed to the wording of Article XI, Section 3(6), which requires the concurrence of two-thirds of all Senate members for conviction. The provision states a fraction rather than the number 16.
“Instead, the language used a fraction. It says two-thirds of all members of the Senate,” he said.
“By using two-thirds, the number of votes to convict will have to move depending on certain factors.”
Puno was addressing whether the voting base should include the Senate’s full membership of 24 or only senators legally and physically capable of participating and voting in an impeachment trial.
He opposed reading the conviction provision on its own, without considering other parts of the Constitution. He said that approach would make the 16-vote requirement unchangeable.
“For these reasons, I join the School of Thought that espouses what is known as contextual and functional interpretation of the Constitution,” Puno said.
He explained that this approach reads the impeachment provision alongside other constitutional provisions and considers whether a senator can perform the duties of the office.
Among the circumstances he identified were death, resignation and expulsion. He also raised legal incapacity, including preventive suspension, as a matter senators could consider in determining who should be counted.
“It is functional because it will give the Senators the flexibility to consider circumstances that will legally prevent a Senator from functioning as a member of the Senate,” he said.
Puno framed these circumstances as questions for the Senate to examine in applying the two-thirds requirement.
He warned that an isolated, literal reading could produce absurdities and injustices that defeat the Constitution’s purpose.
“The provisions of the Constitution should not be interpreted narrowly or pedantically, for the prescriptions therein are not mathematical formulas.”
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