Aquino ‘popularity’ can’t cover for ‘baseless’ impeach case vs Corona – Lagman

MANILA, Philippines — The sustained popularity of President Benigno Aquino III is not enough to cover for the “self-serving conclusions, hearsay allegations, and motherhood statements” in the 57-page impeachment complaint prepared by a team led by House justice committee chair Niel Tupas Jr.

“The impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona cannot be buttressed by a perceived popular pulse because the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary is not a commodity in the market of popularity,” said Minority Leader Edcel Lagman in reference to the President’s 74 percent trust rating in a recent survey.

In a statement, Lagman said that the complaint’s authors “completely forgot” that the Supreme Court had already declared in a March 2010 decision that there was no case of midnight appointment in Corona’s case because the Judicial and Bar Council had been ordered to come up with a short-list of Chief Justice candidates two months before the May elections. “The former President did not appoint Chief Justice Corona until she got the go signal from the Supreme Court,” said Lagman.

Lagman pointed out that Corona could not be impeached for “collegial decisions of the SC” and that some of the decisions included in the eight articles of impeachment, have been acted on by Congress and Malacañang such as in the alleged gerrymandering of local government units where lawmakers passed the statutes and Malacanang enacted them.

While the complaint scored Corona for breaking the “immutability of final judgment,” Lagman pointed out that the 188 complainants who signed the impeachment were themselves guilty of breaking this principle by challenging the final decisions of the SC.

Lagman said the impeachment case, which was completed in five hours from presentation to lawmakers to the signing and to the transmittal to the Senate, was a “farce” as the signatories were asked to sign even before they read the complaint. “If 188 complainants were allotted a minimum of ten minutes each to read and comprehend the 57-page complaint, it would take them no less than 31 hours to attest that they have individually read the complaint,’’ said Lagman.