In hiding, jail, ICU, or hostaged
We are a shipwrecked people in a perfect storm, like flotsam waiting to be washed ashore. Glorious Independence Day greetings, even while we grieve the loss of lives in recent tragedies either force majeure in nature or wrought by human greed and neglect.
It is distressing to note that the ongoing battle between “two Senates” boils down to the physical presence or absence of two senators in order to compute an indisputable quorum. One senator is a fugitive from the law with a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity; the other is in jail, charged with the unbailable crime of plunder and now claims he needs knee surgery. Heaven forbid that one more would end up in a hospital intensive care unit (ICU) or be taken hostage.
“Not so elementary, my dear Watson,” Sherlock Holmes would likely have chided his sidekick for having been too quick with his arithmetic.
For as one senator insisted, an elementary pupil would know that 13 is higher than 12; therefore, 13 is a quorum based on the 24 seats in the Senate. Not on warm bodies present.
But when 24 is really 23 because Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is a fugitive, and when 23 becomes 22 because Sen. Jinggoy Estrada was arrested, sent to jail without bail, ergo, a quorum is 12. That is, based on the denominator, the warm bodies that are able, available, and can be present in Senate sessions, not on the 24 senatorial seats.
The word quorum means the minimum number of persons required to be present for official action to be made in a group or body. But who decides that there is indeed a quorum? Are persons in hiding, in jail, or, say, in the hospital ICU to be counted in making up a quorum?
It’s been a month since the brief cameo appearance of fugitive Dela Rosa in the Senate, so he admitted he could be part of a majority vote that would make Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano Senate president. The drama that ensued—the gunfire, the suspenseful chase, and the getaway—was like a movie thriller, the main actors becoming caricatures of themselves. The succeeding days became a game of thrones, a numbers game. Never in the history of the Philippine legislature has a power struggle been so shamelessly displayed.
To recap (ho-hum): The number of senators in the once minority bloc of 11 suddenly became 12 when Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero of the majority bloc (that ousted Sen. Vicente Sotto III and seated Cayetano as Senate president) left his bloc mates to end the deadlock. The minority 11 became the majority 12 that elected Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian as the acting Senate president. The new majority of 12 (a quorum) can now do official business, with the entire new minority, attending or not, reduced to 11 (13 minus two).
But Cayetano doth protest. His bloc is still the majority with 13, he sayeth. It is not elementary arithmetic after all, my dear Watson.
From their ivory towers, legal experts have weighed in on what makes a Senate quorum, not unlike trying to establish how many angels can stand on the head of a pin, giving those of us who toil in the trenches lessons in the Constitution and jurisprudence. By now we should have earned virtual law units, enough to make some consider law school or political careers.
But levity aside, the ghosts of Senate luminaries long gone and a Supreme Court decision of a bygone era are being invoked. It was Gatchalian who brought up for the first time Avelino v. Cuenco when he presided as acting Senate president and president pro tempore, to justify his new position and do legislative action.
How do you solve a problem like a quorum?
Soon, Avelino v. Cuenco (do read all about it) was channeling from above, like a surfeit of rain flooding the parched plains. Like live online sellers, Facebook experts trotted out the 1987 Constitution as well as past ones. Interpretations of Avelino v. Cuenco flew thick. Is Cayetano the true Senate president?
Note that when Cayetano later presided over his bloc of senators—for him, a quorum—(Escudero had not yet left the bloc), the proceedings were not recorded. The Senate secretariat was nowhere in sight, and there was no stenographer. Was it a Senate session or a press conference?
Meanwhile, we wait if there would be switching of sides among the 22 senators so that a clear quorum of, say, 13 or 14, can be achieved.
A citizen of the republic has sought a Supreme Court decision on the quorum issue. We hope the “gods of Padre Faura” would deign to issue one, on whether or not those senators who are in hiding, in jail, in the ICU or, God forbid, taken hostage, could be included in the base number that determines the majority and quorum. (The Supreme Court has dismissed the petition.)
Quoth former SC Justice Antonio Carpio: “A senator who is a detention prisoner cannot hold public office, thus, he cannot attend Senate sessions or vote. Necessarily, he cannot be included in determining any quorum or majority vote.”
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