Koko slams Chiz for changing VP impeachment calendar

The "unilateral move" of Senate President Francis Escudero to change the calendar of Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial violates the Senate's own rules, minority leader Sen. Koko Pimentel said yesterday.

- By MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB

Escudero had reset the House of Representatives prosecution panel's reading of the Articles of Impeachment from June 2 to June 11, ostensibly to prioritize the passage of pending priority pieces of legislation before the June 13 sine die adjournment.

This did not sit well with Pimentel, who said the Senate impeachment rules state that the legislative agenda should give way to the impeachment trial.

Pimentel was referring to a portion of the Senate impeachment rules, which reads: "At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, or at such other hour as the Senate may order, of the day appointed for the trial of an impeachment, the legislative business of the Senate, if there be any, shall be suspended, and the Secretary of the Senate shall give notice to the House of Representatives that the Senate is ready to proceed upon the impeachment trial... in the Senate Chamber."

"The said section or provision in our impeachment rules gives the directive that should there be both legislative and impeachment matters, the legislative agenda should give way to the impeachment proceedings," Pimentel said in a phone interview with reporters.

For Pimentel, Escudero's invoking the need to pass priority legislation as a reason to reset the impeachment trial violates the "spirit of the rules." Pimentel said he sees no reason for resetting the impeachment calendar because the fullblown trial will only happen in July during the next Congress, and not during the remaining days of the 19th Congress.