November 6, 2000, The Philippine Star, Senate not ready for impeachment, by Rep. Joker Arroyo,

November 6, 2000, The Philippine Star, Senate not ready for impeachment, by Rep. Joker Arroyo,

The impeachment proceedings against President Estrada could be delayed considerably because the Senate, it turns out, does not have the "rules of procedure" that would govern the impeachment trial. 

Unlike the House of Representatives, which had the foresight to adopt a "Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Proceeding" that it would follow, the Senate does not have any rule at all to guide it. What will the Senate do when it receives the articles of impeachment of the House of Representatives against the President? The Constitution says that with the House transmittal, "… trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed." 

Yet the Senate cannot act on it because it does not have the rules to govern the proceedings. When it convenes on Nov. 13, the Senate will just start discussing the rules that it will follow for the Estrada impeachment. 

  
The Constitution mandates that "Congress shall promulgate its rules on impeachment to carry out" the impeachment process. The House did, the Senate unfortunately did not. (The Senate was so busy with the jueteng hearings that it forgot that it had to have rules in the first place.) 

  
To accelerate the impeachment trial in the absence of existing rules, the Senate may perhaps temporarily adopt the rules of the US Senate where the senators act like the jurors in a trial while the Chief Justice acts like the judge. 

  
The senators, like jurors, do not ask questions directly. If a senator would like to ask a particular question, he could do so by coursing it through the Chief Justice who presides. That assures an orderly proceeding as exhibited in the televised Clinton trial before the US Senate. The senators did not argue or speak. 

That protracted hearing was what motivated the 41 original signers of the impeachment complaint of the House when they strove and succeeded in obtaining the minimum requirement of 73 signatures. Now that they have done so and are poised to turn over the articles of impeachment to the Senate, what will the Senate do?