Corona starts forming top-notch defense team

TO RESIGN OR NOT He thought of resigning, Chief Justice Corona tells government lawyers attending a convention at a Manila hotel on Thursday. LYN RILLON

Chief Justice Renato Corona has begun forming the legal team that will handle his defense at the impeachment trial that is to start in mid-January at the Senate.

A number of “top-notch” lawyers have offered their legal services to Corona for free, Jose Midas Marquez, the Supreme Court administrator and spokesperson, said Thursday.

But Marquez denied reports that veteran lawyer Estelito Mendoza, who occasionally serves as legal counsel of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, would lead the Chief Justice’s defense.

Earlier Thursday, the Senate formally summoned Corona to respond to the articles of impeachment filed by the House of Representatives against him.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Jose Balajadia, accompanied by staff members of the chamber, brought the summons that included a copy of the 57-page verified complaint to Corona’s office.

Balajadia told reporters that the documents were received by Rogelio Jubilo Jr., a staff member in Corona’s office, at 4:10 p.m.

Valentina Cruz, the spokesperson of the impeachment court, said the Chief Justice had 10 days to respond.

Senator Edgardo Angara urged his fellow senator-judges to look into the possibility of mediating between President Benigno Aquino III and Corona ahead of the trial.

But Cruz told reporters that “an amicable settlement is not allowed under the rules of impeachment.”

“Unless the House withdraws the articles of impeachment, which is unlikely, or the Chief Justice resigns, which is another scenario,” she said.

Nothing formal yet

Marquez said Corona’s legal team “has yet to be formalized.”

“What I know is that the composition is still being studied, especially now that [Corona’s] office has received the summons from the Senate,” he said, adding:

“We have been receiving offers from different lawyers, both individuals and law firms. The Chief Justice will just have to decide who among them will form part of his legal team.”

Marquez said he was not at liberty to disclose the names of those offering their legal services. He said Corona “is taking some time [deciding] because he wants to be sure that all these lawyers are really the right lawyers to represent him.”

Commenting on Malacañang’s call for Corona to take a leave of absence while preparing for his impeachment trial, Marquez said: “That’s up to the Chief Justice. … I think that’s their objective, for him to resign or take a leave. If he thinks that he should take a leave because his functions are suffering, then he will, regardless of who is asking him to do.”

‘Absurd rulings’

Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares, a member of the House prosecution panel, on Thursday said it was digging up Corona’s “absurd rulings” to build its case that he had been partial to Arroyo during her presidency and beyond.

The panel will list the Supreme Court rulings favorable to Arroyo from the time she became the President in 2001 up to the present, in which Corona had participated as an associate justice or Chief Justice, Colmenares said in a chance interview at the University of the Philippines’ College of Law.

“We will build a case to show that the partiality was intentional. That’s our theory that will be presented at the [impeachment trial],” he said. “That’s a strong ground.”

The panel members, including its chairman, Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr., are to meet during the yearend holidays to prepare for Corona’s trial.

When 188 House members voted to impeach Corona on December 12, they cited several grounds, including his purported partiality and subservience in cases involving the Arroyo administration from his appointment as associate justice to his “midnight appointment” as Chief Justice.

Arroyo, now a Pampanga representative, is under hospital arrest for alleged electoral sabotage.

Colmenares said the Supreme Court issued “a series of absurd rulings” on a wide range of cases involving, among others, Arroyo’s Executive Order No. 464, which barred officials of the executive branch from testifying at legislative inquiries without her permission, and then Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri’s right to invoke executive privilege in refusing to testify on his conversation with Arroyo on the NBN-ZTE deal.

Wanted: independent court

“The most absurd” ruling was the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the high court on the travel ban on Arroyo, said Colmenares, who is the president of the National Union of People’s Lawyers.

“You can make a mistake once or twice, but a series of absurd decisions capped by a TRO issuance, [that’s another matter],” he said, adding that the panel would take into consideration the fact that Corona had served as Arroyo’s chief legal counsel and spokesperson.

Colmenares said representatives of Bayan Muna and other progressive party-list groups signed the impeachment complaint because they agreed with the grounds.

“Bayan Muna has not long been aware of the move to impeach [Corona]. But when it was discussed, we could identify with the grounds, especially the partiality and subservience,” the lawmaker said.

“In fact, our main reason is we want an independent Supreme Court. In the same manner that we will not tolerate an Arroyo court, we will not also tolerate an Aquino court or an Aquino Chief Justice. No court should be subservient to anybody, even appointing authorities,” he said.

He added that in his view, the key role of the prosecutors was to conduct legal research for their testimonial and documentary evidence, present evidence in court and evaluate the entire trial afterwards.

On merits

Elsewhere, the Philippine Bar Association (PBA) called on the three branches of government to comply with the Constitution and the rule of law vis-à-vis Corona’s impeachment.

PBA president Ronald Solis said the group “fully believes in the constitutionality of the impeachment proceedings” against Corona.

“[The trial] will allow the issues to be properly ventilated in a sober and orderly proceeding where guilt or innocence is weighed and determined on [its] true merit and not on the basis of an open competition to win public opinion,” Solis said.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said not only Corona but all justices of the Supreme Court perceived to be sympathetic to Arroyo should consider resigning to preserve the tribunal’s independence and integrity.

He said these justices might face the same impeachment charges lodged against Corona because they had also voted in favor of questionable rulings.

Casiple said among these rulings were the “status quo ante” order issued by the high court stopping the House’s impeachment moves against then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, the flip-flopping in the case of 16 new cities and the creation of Dinagat province, the exculpation of a justice accused of plagiarism and the TRO on the travel ban on Arroyo.

“These justices will have no choice but to be involved in the Corona impeachment, as witnesses for the prosecution, or as hostile or defense witnesses,” added Casiple, the executive director of the Quezon City-based Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms. With reports from Christian V. Esguerra and Jerome Aning