When our senators perform the task of judges in an impeachment case, they are not meeting as a legislative body for their function is not to make laws but to perform the constitutional mandate as “the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.” Such function could be compared to the work of the members of Congress when they convene as a National Board of Canvassers (NBC), likewise not to make laws, but to count the votes cast for the candidates for President and Vice-President.
Amid some calls for senator-judges to be fair and impartial in the on-going impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, the sterling separate opinion of former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno in a case that involved the canvass of votes in the 2004 election of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is very pertinent and appropriate. Perceived by some political observers that the 2004 NBC, then headed by Senate President Frank Drilon and Majority Floor Leader Francis Pangilinan, was biased and partisan in favor of Arroyo, Puno reminded the legislators that the canvass of the votes should “not be done in a robotic manner” since the laws and the rules “look upon them not as unthinking slot machines when conducting the canvass.”
Puno clarified that the NBC is “not meeting as a lawmaking body”, hence, the legislators should discharge their function “with fairness and impartiality” to come up with an “informed and intelligent judgment.” In other words, Puno said, “lawmakers when canvassing votes, should keep their eyes open but should shut them off to any political light.”
And so it should be in the impeachment case against Corona. Its trial should not be conducted in a “robotic manner”. The senators sitting as judges are not meeting as lawmakers but to determine the guilt or innocence of the impeached Chief Justice. Thus, paraphrasing the scholarly views of Puno, our senators-judges are called upon to exercise their discretion with fairness and impartiality to the end that an intelligent judgment is arrived at with full assurances that the constitutional rights of the impeached official are observed and protected. For these constitutional rights are not suspended during the impeachment trial.