Senator Lito Lapid
Call him Judge Manuel “Lito” Lapid.
The action star-turned-politician on Wednesday formally joined his colleagues as senator-judges, as the upper chamber convened as an impeachment court for the trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Like many of his fellow senators, Lapid lacks the legal background, but Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III pointed out that when the senators sit in judgment, they would be no different from the jury in the US legal system.
“There, waitresses and taxi drivers can serve as jurors in the trial of mayors and congressmen,” said Sotto, himself not a lawyer but is well-versed in parliamentary rules as a veteran lawmaker.
One difference is that a jury votes as one while senator-judges decide individually in an impeachment court, Sotto said.
Of the 24-member chamber, half are not lawyers, but they can always call on legal consultants for assistance, according to the majority leader.
During the impeachment trial that led to the ouster of then President Joseph Estrada in 2001, Sotto said he was regularly briefed by a team of legal experts. “But at the end of the day, it was I who still made the decisions,” he said.
Two of the lawyers in the chamber—Senators Franklin Drilon and Francis Pangilinan—are under fire for previously calling on Corona to inhibit from any cases involving former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
But Drilon and Pangilinan, who used to be Arroyo allies but now belong to President Aquino’s Liberal Party, turned down suggestions that they themselves inhibit from the impeachment trial because of their previous position against Corona.
Pangilinan said the rules on inhibition did not apply in an impeachment trial, which he described as a “political proceeding.”
“There are as many senators who have been critical of the Corona court decisions as there have been defenders,” he said in a statement. “If the rules of inhibition are strictly adhered to in a political proceeding, then all the political positions taken by all the senator-judges could be made basis of inhibition and there will be no one left to try the respondent.”