Corona cries ‘inquisition’

Claiming his impeachment trial has become an “inquisition,” Chief Justice Renato Corona on Monday said the Senate tribunal had “lost the cold neutrality of an impartial judge” with Sen. Franklin Drilon and five other senators acting as partisan prosecutors and urged the Supreme Court to stop the proceedings.

In a 48-page supplementary petition hours after the Senate voted 13-10 to respect a Supreme Court restraining order on the opening of Corona’s dollar accounts, the impeached Chief Justice accused Drilon and Senators Serge Osmeña, Francis Pangilinan, Alan Peter Cayetano and Teofisto Guingona III of violating his right to due process by helping the prosecutors.

“The impeachment court has lost the cold neutrality of an impartial judge, in derogation of the guaranteed rights of CJ Corona,” he said in a petition filed as Drilon again led the attempt by senator-judges to persuade officials of the Philippine Savings Bank on Day 16 of the trial to disclose details of peso deposits over vehement objections of lead defense counsel Serafin Cuevas.

“The proceedings herein have become an inquisition, especially after CJ Corona filed his urgent petition with this honorable court. Hence, without any other plain, speedy or adequate remedy available in law, petitioner respectfully submits this supplemental petition to amplify the impeachment court’s grave abuse of discretion,” Corona said.

Corona said his right to due process was being violated in the impeachment trial “because certain senator-judges have lost the cold neutrality of impartial judges, by acting as prosecutors.”

“Repeatedly, certain senator-judges have caused the production of documents and elicited testimonial admissions, greatly favoring the prosecution. But because the defense counsels are prohibited from objecting to the questions and actuations of senator-judges, CJ Corona is helpless against their tyranny,” Corona said.

The Chief Justice also said the senators were eliciting testimonial admissions favoring the prosecution.

Trial a ‘fishing expedition’

“What is obvious is that the senator-judges allied with President Aquino have allowed, instead of prevented, the prosecution to use these impeachment proceedings as “a fishing expedition” for evidence and to destroy petitioner’s character, integrity and reputation,” Corona said.

“Their actions violate the very nature of due process and the character of an impartial judge. Such abuse of constitutional rights cannot be allowed,” he added.

Corona also branded as “oppressive and blatantly violative” of a citizen’s right to due process Drilon’s opinion that impeachment proceedings did not call for the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.

He noted questions of some senators were “clearly intended to accomplish what the prosecution failed to do.”

In a press statement earlier on Monday, Corona accused President Aquino of committing an impeachable offense when he allegedly urged senators to disobey the Constitution.

He insisted that what wealth he and his wife had was the “fruit of hard and honest work” and that his impeachment trial was a “sham” meant to stop the distribution of Hacienda Luisita, the sprawling sugarcane plantation owned by Mr. Aquino’s family.

“The President has clearly committed an impeachable offense when he came out swinging by openly urging the senator-judges to disobey the Constitution he has personally sworn to uphold,” Corona said.

Alleged Palace bribe

On Sunday, Corona’s lawyers said Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, acting on behalf of the President, had offered P100 million in pork barrel funds to senators to defy the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) on the opening of Corona’s dollar accounts—a charge Ochoa has denied.

On Monday, Mr. Aquino in an interview at the Philippine National Police headquarters where he presided over a command conference also denied the defense lawyers’ allegation. “I will not dignify such accusations,” he said.

He stressed the prosecution had other ways of ferreting out Corona’s dollar accounts.

“The point is not that we cannot find the truth,” Mr. Aquino said. “From the substantial discrepancy in the unearthed peso accounts, it looks like they have made their case.”

Last week, Mr. Aquino also deplored the court’s restraining order, saying it was similar to that issued allowing former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to leave the country. The justice department ignored this TRO.

“This impeachment trial is a sham. It is revenge and a shameless attempt to stop the distribution of Hacienda Luisita lands,” Corona said.

Mr. Aquino’s family is seeking in the Supreme Court a P10-billion compensation for the land.

Honest work

Corona insisted that he and his family had enough wealth to start with and that they did nothing wrong while acquiring more assets.

“Throughout my public career, I have never been involved in any anomaly or scandal. Whatever assets my wife and I have acquired are products of 45 years of toil and honest work,” Corona said.

“My wife and I have been privileged to come from families of comfortable means. We grew up never lacking in anything and even enjoyed some luxuries. We earned our academic degrees in some of the best exclusive schools in the country,” he said.

Corona said that he earned several postgraduate degrees, including a master’s degree in Harvard Law School and that their parents “provided well for our future.”

“Family resources continue to be available to us anytime. I had a very successful career in the private sector where I was a top executive before I joined the government. That is public record,” Corona said.

“For the past 40 years, my wife and I lived in a house, which was inherited property, and for that reason never had to pay rent or amortization on our residence. This translated to significant savings over forty years,” he added.

Simple frugal lives

Corona said he and his wife lived “simple and frugal lives since we got married more than 40 years ago, to the point of thriftiness.”

“This contributed to how we have been able to accumulate these assets. Other than our house, which we have lived in for almost 40 years, we have never had any other house,” Corona said.

“I do not spend on vices like smoking, drinking or gambling, and have been completely devoted to my family. My family has always been my priority,” he said.

“It pains me to see my family suffer the reckless abandon of a few who want to paint a different Renato C. Corona. I will not allow a career carefully nurtured and a family lovingly cared for in my lifetime to be tarnished by people in the business of lies and falsehoods,” he added.

Corona said he was determined to “explain everything satisfactorily” when it was the defense’s turn to present its evidence.

“If you look closely at the documents already marked, the explanations are all there. In the meantime, I would like to request the public not to make any hasty conclusions,” Corona said.

“This ‘exposé’ that the prosecution is trying to herald as another ‘bombshell’ will, in due time, be exposed as another dud like the 45 properties they claimed I owned,” he said.

‘I do know my law’

“To the prosecution team, I do know my law. I have not broken any law. I have no liability to the people and to the government,” he added.

Corona said the assets that he and his wife now own were “the fruit of hard and honest work for which all taxes have been fully paid.”

“Since the prosecution alleged wrongdoing, the obligation to prove it is theirs and theirs alone. Do not extract it from me through means that are foul, coercive and illegal because this can only mean one thing: You did not have any iota of evidence against me when you filed the impeachment complaint,” Corona said.

“As to the effort of the prosecution to enlist the assistance of certain patently partisan and inquisitorial senator-judges to help obtain the evidence you are digging up only now, not to mention the ruthless, un-Christian and unrelenting public persecution through trial by publicity against my family and I, I hope the public will see through your schemes,” he said.

“My entire family is now, among others, being harassed by the (Bureau of Internal Revenue). I hope this persecution will never happen to any other official, officer, captain of industry or Juan de la Cruz. I would not wish it on my worst enemy, should I have one.”