🔴JUST IN:SC Justice Ascuna Final 16 Votes Marcoleta Jinggoy Tulfo Lacson Risa VP Sara Impeachment

Contrary to the position of three former Supreme Court justices, retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna maintained that the voting threshold should be based on 24 "all members of the Senate".During their appearance before the impeachment court, Azcuna stated that while all members of the Senate are complete, they are the denominator in calculating the two-thirds threshold because the Constitution says the word “all.This is contrary to the position of Retired Chief Justices Hilario Davide Jr., Artemio Panganiban, and Reynato Puno who chose other constitutional approaches that agreed to base the number of senators on who can legally attend the impeachment trial to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, As long as they are members of the Senate, they constitute the denominator in computing the threshold of two-thirds because all means all,” giit ni Azcuna. “As long as they are members of the Senate, they constitute the denominator in computing the threshold of two-thirds. Because all means all,” ayon kay Azcuna.While mathematics will always be about exact computations — like how one-third of 24 senator-judges will always be 16 — former Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban said that realities must also be considered in navigating proposals to lower the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte.In his speech on Wednesday, as one of the amici curiae invited by the Senate Impeachment Court to shed light on discussions about lowering the conviction threshold, Panganiban said that there are two ways of interpreting laws of the land — from the literal meaning or verba legis, to the reason why the law was written or ratio legis est anima.Verba legis, Panganiban said while quoting the SC, is plainly reading the law through its ordinary meaning. If this is followed, Article XI, Section 3(5) of the 1987 Constitution will mean that an impeachable official under trial will be convicted through a two-thirds vote or 16 out of 24 members.