Senators’ dilemma: Defer to SC or defy it

The Senate impeachment court is poised to question the Supreme Court’s order temporarily barring it from examining the dollar accounts of Chief Justice Renato Corona, according to Senator Franklin Drilon.

But Senators Miriam Santiago and Joker Arroyo said the impeachment court should comply with the temporary restraining order lest it risk a confrontation with a coequal branch that could “end in the streets.”

The Senate has asked Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza to defend it before the high court, and the latter has agreed, Drilon said Friday in a phone interview.

“We have the right to question it. We can’t just lie down and [sing] Alleluia,” said Drilon, who was authorized by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to request Jardeleza to defend the Senate.

Drilon said the Office of the Solicitor General had been furnished all the records so it could prepare “to respond on behalf of the Senate.”

“We can’t be interfered with by the Supreme Court. Otherwise, we lose our independence,” he said, reiterating that the impeachment court was “supreme” on matters pertaining to impeachment, “to the exclusion” of the high court.

He said it was up to the Solicitor General to file the “appropriate pleading” but this should be accompanied by a clear statement that “we do not recognize the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.”

SC has no jurisdiction

Drilon said “a good number” of the senators shared the sentiment of questioning the TRO, specifically the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over the impeachment court.

“I don’t think Enrile will put that to a vote, but if it comes to that, the majority of senators will vote for it,” he said.

Drilon also said questioning the TRO was not inconsistent with complying with it. “We can question the jurisdiction of the high court while we are complying with the TRO,” he said.

The high court voted 8-5 on Thursday to temporarily restrain the Senate impeachment court from compelling Philippine Savings Bank officials to disclose information on Corona’s foreign currency deposits.

“We are questioning it, definitely. Our subpoena is a lawful order of the impeachment court,” Sen. Francis Pangilinan said in a text message.

Pangilinan said that while the high court could exercise judicial review over a “justiciable” controversy, it could not do so over an impeachment case, which is political in nature.

“In other words, the Supreme Court abused its authority by interfering in the impeachment case when it is the sole prerogative of the Senate to try and decide impeachment cases,” he said.

Majority to prevail

The senators are holding a caucus on Monday morning to discuss the TRO.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said he and his colleagues were facing a dilemma because complying with the TRO might be construed as a tacit admission that they committed grave abuse of discretion in voting for the issuance of the subpoena for the bank records on Corona’s dollar accounts.

“On the other hand, defying the TRO might result in an irreparable constitutional crisis,” Lacson said in a text message.

He said he expected “a heated discussion” on the matter in Monday’s caucus. “At the end of the day, the majority among us will prevail,” he said.

Prudence

But Santiago and Arroyo said it would be prudent for the Senate to heed the order.

“It’s a nonissue. The court has spoken. I don’t think the Senate would be so brazen as to say we will not obey the Supreme Court,” Arroyo said by phone.

“We don’t want a confrontation between the Supreme Court and the Senate. It’s not good for the country, especially at this time,” he said.

Santiago warned that the Senate’s defiance of the TRO would lead to a “collision” between the two bodies.

“If the impeachment court resolves not to follow the TRO, there will be a collision. There’s no way of avoiding that anymore,” she told reporters in a phone-patch interview, adding:

“If none of them yields, that will result in a stalemate. It will have to be decided on the streets because there’s nobody else that will make the decision.”

‘People Power nausea’

Santiago said there were “7,000 to 10,000 people in [front of] the Supreme Court [on Thursday] in favor of [its] decision.”

“What if it were multiplied 10 times and there were a million people on EDSA?” she said. “We don’t want it to happen all over again. People are suffering from People Power nausea.”

According to Santiago, the three branches of government operate under a system of checks and balances, and the high court’s TRO is part of this.

“Clearly under the Constitution, what the Supreme Court is doing is constitutional,” she said, pointing out that if the Senate defied the TRO, it was indicating it was immune from checks “and that it becomes an absolute impeachment court.”

“That is not allowed by our system of checks and balances. No one branch is allowed to be absolute in its power,” she said.

Matter between SC, Senate

Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the Senate impeachment court as well as the House  prosecutors might raise the issue of jurisdiction before the Supreme Court.

But the TRO did “not necessarily” mean that the high court was interfering with the jurisdiction of the Senate over impeachment proceedings, he said.

“We will only know the issue of jurisdiction if it would be raised by the respondents; they should raise it if they think it is a proper issue,” he said.

Asked to comment on Malacañang’s warning of a constitutional crisis brought about by the TRO, Marquez said: “I don’t see where the executive [branch] is coming from. This is a matter between the Senate acting as the impeachment court and the Supreme Court.

“Let’s see how the Senate will act on it. We are of course hoping that the two equal branches of government will be maintaining interbranch comity and courtesy, and respect for each other’s issuances.”

As for the threat of House prosecutor and Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Fariñas to initiate an impeachment complaint against the eight justices who voted for the issuance of the TRO, Marquez said: “Let’s wait if he’s going to file. We’ve heard that before. It’s a constant threat but of course, the justices will not be threatened by [that] canard.”

He also said the eight justices were of the belief that there was an urgency in PSBank’s petition, and that the issuance of a TRO was the “more prudent” thing to do.

‘Desperate move’

Critics of Corona said the TRO issued by the high court was “a mockery of justice.”

“The TRO on [the inquiry into] Corona’s dollar deposits is a brazen attempt to obstruct the impeachment court’s efforts to uncover the truth behind [his] undeclared … bank deposits. It is a desperate move to mask the full extent of Corona’s hidden and illegitimate wealth from the public,” former lawmaker Risa Hontiveros, spokesperson of the Bantay Gloria Network said in a statement.

Hontiveros reiterated the group’s earlier call for Corona to resign or, at the very least, take a leave of absence while the impeachment trial was ongoing.

She recalled that the “Corona-led Supreme Court” issued a TRO in November 2011 that would have allowed former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “to leave for abroad and therefore escape prosecution for plunder and electoral sabotage had she not been prevented from doing so by the Department of Justice.”

Now, she said, Arroyo’s appointees in the tribunal “have banded together once again to make a mockery of justice.”

Leah Navarro, co-convener of the Black and White Movement, said the TRO “demonstrated very clearly” that the Arroyo appointees in the high court were “working hand-in-glove with Corona’s defenders to hinder the impeachment trial and prevent Corona’s inevitable removal from office for his massive amounts of undeclared and unexplained wealth.”

Navarro called on the senator-judges to “disregard the TRO and continue to work at uncovering the complete truth regarding Corona’s bank deposits and various expensive real estate properties as required under their constitutional mandate.”

Suppression of evidence

Corona’s foreign currency deposits at PSBank could have been the prosecution’s “coup de grace” to seal his fate before the end of the fourth week of the impeachment trial, according to Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo.

“By coming to the aid of the Chief Justice when all the damaging evidence was about to unravel, and despite the risk of getting the country into a constitutional crisis,” the Supreme Court showed its readiness to rescue the Chief Justice from a judgment of conviction by the Senate,” Quimbo, the prosecution spokesperson, told the Inquirer.

He said that despite earlier setbacks, the prosecution had built a case with “clear and convincing evidence” in a span of four weeks.

“But the dollar account, in our minds, based on the way [the justices] are acting, is a ‘coup de grace.’ They are hiding substantial evidence,” he said. “It’s an attempt to hijack the process and effectively allow the suppression of evidence.”

Asked to comment, defense spokesman Tranquil Salvador III disagreed with Quimbo’s claim.

“No. The Supreme Court only exercised its power to interpret the laws under the Constitution, and we have to understand that the branches of government will not stop operating by reason of the pendency of the impeachment trial. If you will look closely at the petition, you would note that they elevated to the Supreme Court a pure question of law,” Salvador said.

He said what the TRO meant was that “our democracy is effectively functioning even if the Chief Justice is going through an impeachment trial.”

Transparency

But Quimbo said the fact that the eight justices were “willing to risk getting us to the brink of a clear constitutional crisis … only means that there is something substantial there that they are trying to hide.”

“If there’s nothing there, why go through all this process and practically throw away the Constitution?” he said. “That’s the message. What the Supreme Court is now effectively saying is that transparency is limited only to Philippine currency.”

Salvador, however, pointed out that the high court had acted on the petition filed by PSBank, not by the defense.

First posted 12:17 am | Saturday, February 11th, 2012