13 senators seen as voting threshold in Sara Duterte impeachment trial

<p>Thirteen votes could be enough to convict Vice President Sara Duterte in her impeachment trial if only 20 senators are considered active and eligible to participate in the proceedings, law professor and litigation lawyer Howard Calleja said on Saturday.</p><p>Calleja said the two-thirds voting threshold for conviction should be based on the number of senators who are present and able to perform their functions, rather than automatically using the full 24-member Senate.</p><p>"If 20 na lang ang natira, I think the 2/3 of 20 is 13 point something, so 13 din ang gagamitin natin as the number for conviction," Calleja said at the Saturday News Forum.</p><p>(If only 20 remain, I think two-thirds of 20 is 13-point-something, so we would use 13 as the number of votes needed for conviction.)</p><p>Calleja said the 1987 Constitution does not specifically require 16 votes for conviction, noting that it requires the "concurrence of two-thirds of all the…