Integrated Bar of the Philippines to issue daily updates on impeachment trial

MANILA, Philippines—A team of volunteer lawyers will issue daily updates at the end of each hearing during the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, according to Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) president Roan Libarios.

The team will be led by Beatrix Rose Angeles, Patricia Ann Progalidad and former Sandiganbayan Justice Raoul Victorino, Libarios told reporters on Friday. He said four other IBP members would join the team.

The daily updates are part of the IBP’s Impeachment Watch, which is for the benefit of the group’s members and which “aims to monitor and coordinate the proceedings of the impeachment to monitor their effect on the judicial system.”

Libarios said the team would also brief the public, through the media, on the proceedings.

“This is an initiative of the IBP to help make the trial at the Senate fair. We will send people to observe [whether] the proceedings are in accordance with fair play and the rules. Our focus will be the fairness of the process at the Senate,” he said, adding:

“We want to inform the public what’s happening … We want a fair and credible trial. What we want is a credible outcome.”

The IBP earlier assailed the House of Representatives for impeaching Corona. It said the articles of impeachment were hurriedly adopted, with the lawmakers not given enough time to study the complaints against the Chief Justice.

Libarios said the IBP adopted its “initial stand” on Corona’s impeachment “as part of its job as advocate of the rule of law.”

“When we saw what happened at the House, we just pointed out the defects,” he said.