Keep off impeachment, Supreme Court told

Secretary Edwin Lacierda

Malacañang on Thursday said Congress should be allowed to do its duty under the Constitution and proceed with the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona unimpaired by the Supreme Court.

Secretary Edwin Lacierda, President Benigno Aquino III’s spokesperson, issued the remark in the wake of several petitions filed before the Supreme Court questioning the manner by which the House transmitted the impeachment complaint against Corona to the Senate.

“The Constitution provides that the legislature is the one that will try, will impeach the Chief Justice, and the Senate will convict the Chief Justice. It’s a role that is reserved exclusively to the legislature,” Lacierda told reporters in Malacañang.

Lacierda said the matter was now a political issue. It was up “to the representatives of the people to decide the fate of the Chief Justice,” he said.

He suggested that it was not correct for the Supreme Court to rule on the questions brought before the tribunal regarding the impeachment now pending before the Senate.

“I think it will be more proper for the Supreme Court to let the process take its course because if it’s going to stop the process then that would mean a biased position in favor of one of its own members,” Lacierda said. “So the impeachment process has begun and let it finish its course in the Senate.”

A former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to stop the impending impeachment trial of Corona in the Senate.

Lawyer Vicente Millora asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the Senate from hearing the impeachment complaint.

Millora’s petition was the third filed before the Supreme Court on the issue. Two separate petitions questioning Corona’s impeachment were filed on Monday by lawyer Vladimir Cabigao and tax informer Danilo Lihaylihay.

Millora argued that the articles of impeachment should be declared null and void because members of the House of Representatives acted with grave abuse of discretion when they approved the complaints against Corona.

The lawyer said that the articles of impeachment did not go through the process prescribed in Section 3, Article XI of the Constitution.

Millora also said that the 188 congressmen who endorsed the impeachment complaint without reading it had “maneuvered in open conspiracy” with Mr. Aquino.