The House prosecution panel welcomed the Supreme Court’s dismissal of petitions challenging the voting threshold adopted by the Senate impeachment court in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, saying the ruling would allow the proceedings to continue without further distractions.

According to a report by RH Milky Rigonan on Magandang Umaga Pilipinas, House Prosecutor and Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said the dismissal should clear the way for the impeachment court to proceed with the trial and eventually decide the case based on the evidence presented.

Ridon added that the prosecution remains focused on completing its presentation and leaving the final decision to the senator-judges.

House trial spokesperson Robert Ace Barbers also welcomed the development, saying the dismissal would allow the impeachment proceedings to move forward without the pending challenges over the voting threshold.

The SC on Wednesday dismissed separate petitions filed by former Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, constitutional lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr., and disbarred lawyer Berteni Causing, which questioned the impeachment court’s September 23 ruling on the computation of the two-thirds vote required to convict Duterte. The petitions were dismissed on procedural grounds, including lack of standing and prematurity.

The controversy stemmed from the impeachment court’s decision to abandon the earlier fixed 16-vote threshold, which represented two-thirds of the full 24-member Senate.

In a 13-1 vote, with six senator-judges not participating, the impeachment court ruled that the two-thirds requirement would instead be based on senators who are legally and factually capable of participating in the proceedings when the judgment is rendered.

Four senator-judges have been unable to participate in the trial: Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta, who are detained over separate plunder cases; Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who has not appeared publicly amid efforts to serve an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant; and Sen. Loren Legarda, who is on medical leave abroad.

The September 23 ruling did not set a permanent lower number of votes. Instead, it retained the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote, while changing the senators included in the computation based on their legal and factual ability to participate at the time of judgment.