No ‘fireworks’ expected at Corona impeachment trial before Holy Week break
MANILA, Philippines – Don’t expect the defense panel to end its presentation this coming week with any “fireworks” as Congress breaks for the Holy Week. Neither Cristina Corona nor any other “star witness” will take the stand yet.
Chief Justice Renato Corona’s defense team promises to present a host of witnesses for Article 2 at the impeachment trial from Monday to Thursday, but they’re lightweight compared with Cristina or even the chief justice himself.
Congress adjourns on March 23, and resumes sessions on May 7.
Defense counsel and spokesperson Tranquil Salvador III said that the panel won’t present Cristina as a witness for her husband until May.
Presenting Cristina as a witness is not so much a matter of defense strategy as a matter of “need.” Her taking the witness stand would largely depend on the flow of witnesses and their testimonies, according to Salvador.
“We’re laying our evidence, and in laying evidence, there is a path you will use. You draw a direction. And when the direction reaches that point where we need to present Mrs. Corona, then we will do it. So we can’t say when she will testify,” he said after appearing at a press forum.
Earlier, at the forum at Annabel’s restaurant in Quezon City, Salvador said the defense had no “star witnesses” yet to present.
His colleague, lawyer Rico Paolo Quicho, said the Lenten congressional recess should give everyone, including the senators, prosecution and defense lawyers, a “second wind” in preparation for the final stretch of the drawn-out trial in May and June.
This, however, does not mean that the defense was delaying the presentation of its evidence, defense spokesperson Karen Jimeno said.
The defense withheld the identities of their witnesses for the coming week, the second week of their presentation.
The defense lawyers, however, said that Corona himself was the best person to answer issues about his involvement with the Basa-Guidote Enterprises Inc. (BGEI), the corporation owned by his wife’s family that has figured in the trial.
“I don’t want to touch that. If he’s going to take the witness stand, it will appear that we will be explaining this ahead of him. If I read it right, his request is that he should be the one to explain, which I think is the better way of doing it. Besides, we have no personal knowledge of it,’’ Salvador said. He was reacting to a story by the rappler.com that Corona, who had earlier been reported as saying he had nothing to do with BGEI, himself negotiated the sale of BGEI’s property in Manila.
Corona and his wife met with then Manila Mayor Lito Atienza to negotiate the sale of the 1,020 square meter lot on Legarda Street, the “crown jewel” of the Basa-Guidote family corporation, agreeing on the price of P34.7 million. The city government later issued a check to Cristina “in trust” for the BGEI.
In his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, Corona listed “cash advances” from BGEI to pay for his properties.
The defense panel, however, said it was too early to say whether Corona himself would take the witness stand.
“It’s hard to say whether this would hasten the whole thing. We have yet to see if this is needed. There are those pushing for his testimony since he’s the accused. If we decided to put him on the stand on the first day, we still would have called in the other witnesses that we presented,” Jimeno said.
Quicho said the defense should not be dictated to on how to go about its presentation of documents and witnesses, including Corona.
“How come not one of 188 complainants stood up? Now they’re pushing him to testify. It will not serve the purpose. Let’s look at the entire flow of the process,” he said.
