Enrile: No one can stop impeachment court now

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile indicated that the impeachment court was not likely to stop the trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona despite the deluge of petitions asking the Supreme Court to order an end to the proceedings.

“My reading of the Constitution is that this is a special situation. (The Senate has) the sole power to try and decide the case meaning, no one can interfere with us as long as we apply the Bill of Rights and the principle of due process,” Enrile said in an ambush interview.

“Now, if we really become arbitrary or tyrannical or oppressive in our decisions, then maybe that will become an issue later on after we have done the work. But while we are doing the work, in our opinion no one can interfere with us,” he added.

Enrile, however, pointed out that his statement did not mean “that in this case we (the impeachment court) become superior.”

6 petitions

To date, the Supreme Court has received six petitions for certiorari and prohibition asking the tribunal to order a halt to the impeachment trial.

The petitioners cried foul over the House of Representatives’ alleged railroading of the verified complaint detailing the articles of impeachment against Corona and the supposed grave abuse of discretion by prosecutors who prepared the complaint.

On Thursday, two journalists led the filing of the sixth case in the Supreme Court which sought to stop the impeachment trial of Corona on the grounds that the House complaint was defective.

Newspaper columnist Herman Tiu Laurel, Bataan-based journalist Rolando Salandanan and businessman Rufino Martinez of Quezon City, filed a case which sought the Supreme Court’s intervention in the impeachment trial.

In their pleading, they called on the tribunal to uphold the rule of law and due process by declaring without legal basis all the articles of impeachment against Corona. They said the articles were not verified by the members of the House as required by the lower chamber’s rules on impeachment.

“[We] are entitled to a government that operates faithfully under the rule of law. As fathers, [we] have the right and the duty to raise [our] children under a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality and peace. [We] have the right to help ensure that the respondents perform their official duties with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, and in the performance of such duties, act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith.

“[We] have the right to ensure that the respondents do not ignore the law, specially the fundamental law, or commit any grave abuse of discretion,” they said.

Like the previous petitioners, they argued that the House members acted with grave abuse of discretion when they ignored the provision of the 1987 Constitution that an impeachment complaint must be verified. The Senate also violated the law when it accepted and proceeded with the trial based on an unverified complaint, they said.

They said the House members who voted for impeachment lied when they said that they signed the complaint based on their “own knowledge and belief on the basis of (their) reading and appreciation of documents and other records pertinent thereto.” Several congressmen have claimed they did not have enough time to read the complaint and the supporting documents.

In their regular en banc session on Tuesday, the Supreme Court did not issue a temporary restraining order. Instead, it ordered the consolidation of five petitions. The new case filed by Laurel and company is a petition for certiorari, which is a pleading asking a lower tribunal to send in the records of a case for review.