Wanted: Spokesperson for Corona

Chief Justice Renato Corona is looking for a spokesperson, Jose Midas Marquez said.

“I won’t be able to speak for him during the impeachment process. I will have to speak for the court,” Marquez said. He reiterated that “prominent lawyers” had offered their services to Corona for the trial.

Marquez declined to comment on Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s statement the other day that Corona, a “midnight” appointee of then outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was “a walking constitutional violation.”

“I also call on the good secretary: If it can be, let’s refrain from statements like that. Let’s leave it to the President and his spokespersons—anyway, there are many of them. And if the Chief Justice would like to reply, let’s leave it to the Chief Justice,” Marquez said.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines has called on the Supreme Court to discipline De Lima for making such a statement.

But De Lima merely said everyone had a right to express their opinion on Corona and the impeachment case. She said she did not even mind that lawyers of the Public Attorneys Office, an agency under the DOJ, had expressed support for Corona.

“Chief Justice Corona is now fair game after being impeached. [The high court] might as well discipline all lawyers in the House who signed the impeachment complaint, [which] used graver language. So why single [me] out? Only the Senate now, and not the Supreme Court, has control over the issue. Otherwise, the House prosecutors will just be cited in contempt by the Supreme Court once they prosecute,” De Lima said.