FIRST DAY Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (left) promises a fair and impartial impeachment trial for a defiant Chief Justice Renato Corona (right) who attended the first day of the trial. LYN RILLON
The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, on Monday quashed a key move by the camp of Chief Justice Renato Corona for a preliminary hearing and eventually a stop to his impeachment trial.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile denied the Corona motion “for want of merit” on the first day of the trial in a ruling that elated the prosecution.
Enrile also dismissed for “lack of standing” a petition by a private lawyer to sanction prosecutors for releasing purported evidence to media earlier.
“We believe that today, it is positive for us, but we don’t look at it as one bit of a victory,” Representative Romero Quimbo, a spokesperson of the prosecution panel, later told reporters.
“We have still a long way to go,” Quimbo said, adding that at least “roadblocks” had been removed.
Accompanied by his wife and supporters, Corona showed up at the gallery despite initial concerns that he would just subject himself to ridicule from prosecutors pushing his ouster for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption embodied in eight articles of impeachment.
Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas, head of the defense team, said the Chief Justice opted to come to “show respect” to the impeachment court and “show the entire world that he is prepared to enter his defense and convince this honorable body that he is entitled to an acquittal.”
Cuevas entered a plea of not guilty on all the charges against Corona.
“He said he was happy,” said a defense lawyer, Tranquil Salvador III, when asked about how Corona took the opening day’s events. “I saw it in his face. He actually expected what happened.”
Prosecutors from the House of Representatives, who are seeking to oust Corona in a move that has the blessings of President Benigno Aquino III, apparently made sure the Chief Justice would get their message.
“In the name of God, go!” Representative Niel Tupas Jr., head of the prosecution team, said in his opening statement, quoting Oliver Cromwell.
“It is high time for us to put an end to your sitting in that place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice, you are an enemy of good government, as you have sold your country for a mess of potage, and like Judas Escariot betrayed your God for a few pieces of gold. Depart I say, and let us have done with you.”
Tupas was then reminded by Enrile to address the presiding officer, not Corona or anybody else in the trial. Corona sat stony faced beside his wife at the far end of the VIP section in the session hall.
Enrile opened the trial at exactly 2:13 p.m., more than a month after lawmakers led by Mr. Aquino’s Liberal Party mounted the impeachment complaint against the country’s top magistrate.
Impartiality, fairness
In his opening statement, Enrile acknowledged the “political nature” of the impeachment trial. But he made it clear that it was “neither an excuse nor a license for us to ignore and abandon our solemn and higher obligation and responsibility as a body of jurors to see to it that the Bill of Rights are observed and that justice is served.”
Enrile urged the senators “to conduct the trial with impartiality and fairness, to hear the case with a clear and open mind, to weigh carefully in the scale the evidence against the respondent, and to render to him a just verdict based on no other consideration than our Constitution and laws, the facts presented to us, and our individual moral conviction.”
He said the trial would be governed by the rules on impeachment adopted by the Senate and vowed to see to it that it is completed, obviously alluding to the aborted proceedings against then President Joseph Estrada in 2001 that led to his ouster in a people power uprising.
Enrile pleaded for “some degree of caution on the part of everyone in exposing evidence that ought to be presented in this impeachment court out (to) the public.”
“The public is not under oath, unlike witnesses presented here,” he said. He warned against public discussion of evidence in public.
“We are not litigating this case before the people. We are a representative democracy. We operate through representatives. Let institutions of government operate according to tasks and powers granted to them.”
Temporary setback
Corona had earlier asked the Senate to conduct a preliminary hearing so his lawyers could scrutinize how House members signed and approved the 57-page complaint, which included annexes of 131 pages. It all happened in a matter of hours last December 12 and was promptly transmitted to the Senate the following day.
Cuevas on Monday argued on the floor that Corona was not accorded due process, saying there was neither a notice nor a hearing conducted to allow the Chief Justice to respond to the accusations.
“What is the status therefore of this complaint (in the Senate)?” he asked. “The Supreme Court has already ruled on this. Any and all proceedings conducted in connection therewith are a nullity and therefore respondent is entitled to a dismissal of the complaint amounting to an acquittal.”
Enrile did not rule on the issue directly, but his decision to proceed with the trial, which resumes Tuesday, indicated a ruling against the motion.
Salvador said that Enrile’s rejection of the motion for preliminary hearing, to be embodied in a resolution to be issued within 48 hours, was “just a temporary setback.”
“We will be looking for legal remedies which we deem proper,” he said, once the defense gets the resolution.
House prosecutors’ role
Tupas initially asked that Mario Bautista, the lead private prosecutor in the case, be allowed to respond to Cuevas, a veteran litigator and also a former justice.
But Enrile rebuffed him saying questions of law “must be presented by members of the House of Representatives acting as prosecutors.”
“To us, the House initiates, the Senate tries and decides (impeachment cases),” Tupas argued. “It is very clear on the face of the complaint that it was verified by 188 members of the House… The House within its own sphere is supreme, in the same way that the Senate is also supreme.”
Save for Tupas’ fiery opening statement, the first day of Corona’s trial was relatively benign. Both camps provided a summary on how they intended to argue their respective cases before the senator-judges.
Eduardo de los Angeles, former dean of Ateneo Law School, delivered the opening statement for the defense in a dispassionate and scholarly tone. He assailed the manner and motives behind Corona’s impeachment.
“Today, the House of Representatives and executive department have joined all their might, power and resources to impeach the Chief Justice. This impeachment sends a chilling threat to the Supreme Court to withhold the exercise of its judicial power and just let the President have his way,” De los Angeles said.
“Unfortunately, his obsessive pursuit of his goal has at times resulted in the infringement of the law. It has also brought the branches of government into collision and now it divides the nation,” he added.
Loyal Arroyo servant
Tupas painted an image of Corona, one that was “a loyal servant to former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”
He said the prosecutors would “prove” that Corona “amassed ill-gotten wealth after he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2002.”
De los Angeles said the “bloated list of titles” earlier released to the media ahead of the trial by Tupas and company were “irrelevant” to the proceedings.
He said Corona had only five properties—not 45 as claimed by prosecutors—and that the allegation was limited to his supposed failure to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN).
De los Angeles said Corona had been filing his SALN yearly with the high tribunal’s clerk of court, the designated custodian who was “restricted” by a 23-year-old resolution to disclose it to the public.
Tupas mentioned six alleged properties by Corona, five of which had earlier been tackled in public.
A sixth property was allegedly the one located on No. 57 Maranao Street, La Vista, Quezon City. It was supposedly acquired in 2003 for P20.4 million and allegedly sold to Corona’s daughter for P18 million.
“The process of accountability is always a painful one. But the legislature is tasked by no less than the Constitution, the very expression of the people’s will, to undertake this sacred duty. And if at this instance, this is how we are called upon to be of service to our country, impeach we must,” Tupas said.
In a preview of its counterarguments, Corona’s legal team said he should not be faulted for the defeat of the President’s Executive Order No. 1, which sought to create the Philippine Truth Commission.
In his opening statement, De los Angeles said the Supreme Court was correct in ruling that the executive order violated the equal protection clause in the Constitution because the commission intended to zero in only on Arroyo.
De los Angeles noted that the court “even suggested a cure for the defect by not limiting the probe to the Arroyo administration.” “But the executive department stubbornly refused to adopt such a simple amendment,” he said. With reports from Cynthia D. Balana and Marlon Ramos
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