Chief Justice Sereno is digging in, confident that those who want to convict her in an impeachment trial will not get the numbers in the 
Senate to do so.
It is a foregone conclusion that the House of Representatives will impeach her, and the articles will be submitted to the Senate by April, for the senators to hear when Congress resumes sessions after the Holy Week recess.
But that would be a short session, and the timeline for a full-blown trial indicates that unless some sudden and unexpected early denouement transpires, the trial will go beyond this particular session, well into August after the President’s State of the Nation Address on July 23.
The early denouement could come in the form of a decision by the High Tribunal itself on the quo warranto petition of Solicitor General Jose Calida, asking it to declare her appointment void ab initio.
I cannot divine how the Court would act on this legal prime conundrum. Or, contrary to her present posturing, the CJ might just resign. Neither can this writer predict that.
So let us assume that the trial proceeds, with the House presenting the articles of impeachment and proving that at least one of those articles is sufficient reason for the senators to convict her.
Meanwhile, public attention, or at least media attention will be riveted at the highs and lows of the trial, with perhaps less intensity than what transpired during the impeachment and eventual conviction of the unfortunate Chief Justice Renato Corona.
But Sereno feels she has the numbers to defeat the House. Which means she believes there will be more than eight senators who will not vote to convict.
Two of these are a given: Senator Leila de Lima, whether or not she is allowed by the court to participate; and Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, who has resigned to join the cabinet.
So Sereno needs seven more to vote against impeachment, or even just abstain from casting a vote to convict.
Such is the numbers game in a Senate of 24 members. Remember the Erap trial? He was certain of 11 senators committed to vote against his conviction. There was no legal way for Erap to be ousted from his duly elected office under the strictures of the Constitution. But a mistake on the part of his lawyers, that of not allowing the opening of the second envelope which was supposed to contain the incriminating evidence, sparked a walk-out and the beginnings of what history records as a second Edsa.
Such high drama is not likely to happen in the case of Sereno, as it did not in the case of Corona. An elected President is far too different an official in the public esteem as an appointed Chief Justice.
Even now, you see the ordinary man-on-the-street quite indifferent to the impeachment saga. The prices of rice, the LRT breakdowns, the increase in petrol prices, even the depreciation of the peso exchange value—all these matter more.
Sobra ang layo sa tiyan ng Supreme Court; sobra din ang layo sa isipan. Except of course, for the legal practitioners, students, and media.
Will there be an upheaval? Of course not. Note how the audiences that CJ Sereno bring her case to in order to elicit enough public sympathy are not getting any bigger, nor any different in political color than the usual anti-Duterte chorus.
There is another difference: In the case of the late CJ Corona, the numbers to impeach in the House were done by presidential fiat. There was no hearing in the justice committee. Sereno’s case has run the whole course in the House.
Are there any surprises left to uncover and expose in the Senate, such as in the high drama against Corona, where no less than the Ombudsman brought out a money trail that boggled the mind versus the declared statement of assets and liabilities?
The focus this time will be on how the embattled Sereno would respond; how she would defend herself against accusations heard several times over.
And in the end, how would the senators decide? As stated in a previous article, this is a political trial. It is not about guilt beyond reasonable doubt; it is about whether the impeached public official should or should not be removed given his or her capacity to effectively discharge the duties of his/her office thereafter.
Would Sereno, after all that has been said and all that will yet unravel, still effectively discharge her responsibilities as chief magistrate of the republic? At the end of the day, that is what our nationally-elected senators are supposed to base their decision upon, in the highest interest of the nation.
Back to the numbers: the Sereno camp could count on the Liberals— Drilon, Aquino, Pangilinan, and allied Akbayan’s Hontiveros, plus Trillanes. Five plus two who cannot vote to convict equals seven. Two more.
But then again, Drilon and Pangilinan voted to convict Corona. How would they reconcile their previous vote against the now dead CJ versus their “expected” and “partisan” vote in the case of Sereno? As they say, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
But even assuming the two who convicted Corona would stand their ground for the chief magistrate deeply selected by their previous party chairman, PNoy mismo, who could the two more possibly be?
Escudero, Honasan, Lacson, Legarda, Recto and Sotto likewise voted to convict Corona. Would Sereno reasonably think they would find legal or moral contortions to explain a different vote?
Then there are the reelectionists: Aquino, Angara, JV Ejercito, Pimentel. Poe and Villar. With all but Bam Aquino assured of being guest candidates in the administration slate (a pure PDP-Laban senatorial slate is politically incomprehensible), would they vote to un-impeach?
Of course, it’s still a long way to D-Day. Meanwhile, perish all thought about this dispensation coming up with a new variation of the DAP to “persuade” our senators. “Not under my watch,” as the President would say.
A veteran legislator told me weeks ago that if Sereno gave in to the unanimous call of her peers and took an indefinite leave, it is reasonable to believe that when “tipping point” is reached during the trial, she may let go.
Vamos a ver.
