Senators demanding that Chief Justice Renato Corona identify their colleague whom he claimed had sent an emissary to tell him to resign would have to wait, a defense lawyer said on Saturday.
“Let’s wait. In time he will identify the senator. If and when he testifies, this question will be asked of him. If he tells it now, he might offend the senator,” said defense panel spokesperson Tranquil Salvador III in a phone interview.
“Let’s see if he decides to do it before the trial or during the proceedings,” Salvador said in a phone interview.
On the possibility of Corona taking the stand in the trial, he said the defense would see “if it was really necessary.”
In radio interviews on Friday, Corona revealed that a senator had sent an emissary to warn him that he would be “stripped in public” if he did not resign from the court.
The Chief Justice said the emissary had gone to see him at the Supreme Court after he was impeached by the House of Representatives in December. Corona had stopped short of identifying the senator whom he described as a male, lest the latter would get “angrier” with him.
Drilon’s dare
Sen. Franklin Drilon dared the Chief Justice to name the senator.
Drilon also welcomed Corona’s pronouncements on his readiness to open his bank accounts, including his dollar accounts.
Drilon asserted that these statements, in effect, rendered moot the high court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) on opening Corona’s foreign currency accounts in the Philippine Savings Bank.
“The TRO preventing the opening of the dollar accounts of the Chief Justice has, in effect, become moot and academic since Corona said he was willing to divulge his dollar accounts,” Drilon said in a statement.
Salvador retorted that Corona was not a party to the petition filed by PSBank, and hence, his pronouncements had no effect on the case.
Republic Act No. 6426 protects the secrecy of foreign currency deposits in the Philippines. On the petition of PSBank, the high court had voted 8-5 to issue a TRO stopping the impeachment court from scrutinizing Corona’s dollar accounts. The senator-judges voted to respect the TRO.
In a media blitz last week, Corona said over GMA 7 that he would make good on his promise to make public his dollar accounts “at the right time.”
The defense panel indicated that it was not closing the door to the possible testimony of Corona at the trial itself.
Salvador said the defense was “strongly considering him to testify if there was a need for him to testify,” but this need would be continuously evaluated by all defense lawyers during the trial.
“In the course of the trial, we will know. If there’s a need, we will present him. If we can lay our evidence without him testifying, [then we will not present him],” he said.
Submit to counsel
“Personally, he (Corona) is open to testifying but he always has to submit to the decision of his counsels,” Salvador added in a phone interview.
Earlier, the chief of the defense panel, former justice Serafin Cuevas, ruled out Corona taking the witness stand. But Cuevas later said that Corona’s taking the stand would depend on “necessity.”
On the defense’s presentation on Monday, Salvador said: “We’ll start off with our affirmative defense pertaining to the defective nature of the complaint. What does it constitute and did the signatories understand it? Was this properly sworn to and actually verified?”
For this, the defense is presenting one or two witnesses who have personal knowledge about the manner by which the articles were prepared before they were transmitted to the Senate for trial in December, Salvador said.
Cuevas had earlier indicated that Cristina Corona and six lawmakers, including Herminaldo Mandanas, Tobias Tiangco and Crispin Remulla, would be among their witnesses when the trial resumes this week.
House on trial
According to Salvador, Cristina Corona would testify on Article 2, which deals with her husband’s alleged nondisclosure of his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, and nondisclosure of assets in the SALNs.
Prosecution spokesperson, Marikina Rep. Federico Romero Quimbo, bristled at the defense plan to highlight questions on the validity of the complaint, calling it an attempt to put the House on trial in the impeachment court.
In his own answer to the complaint, Corona pointed to the “blitzkrieg fashion” by which 188 representatives signed the articles, and declared the complaint to be insufficient in substance and form.
He had argued that the complaint was “constitutionally infirm and defective” in the sense that majority of the lawmakers were made to sign it without reading it and thus, failed to comply with the verification requirement.
During the trial, Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas admitted to the poor crafting of the articles and not a few senators observed that these were “ill-prepared.”
The prosecution has rested its case after presenting witnesses and documents on Articles 2, 3 and 7, and suddenly dropping Articles 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8.
During the break, the impeachment court ruled to admit the purportedly illegally obtained records of Corona’s bank deposits. The defense objected to this.
No pressure
The defense, which was given a whole week to prepare, doesn’t feel pressured to wrap up its presentation of witnesses and documents in the next two weeks before Congress adjourns on March 23 for Holy Week. Congress resumes sessions on May 7.
“The prosecution would want us to end as soon as possible. But inasmuch as they were given leeway, we should be given leeway. It’s not a question of speed. In a trial, the accused should be given ample time to present the case,” Salvador said.
The senator-judges dropped an earlier proposal to hold a day-long trial to speed up the proceedings, but decided to expand the trial period from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Thursday beginning this week.
Does the defense expect tougher grilling from the senator-judges?
“We expect a lot of questions from them, especially if they feel that the testimonies are material and relevant. It all depends on how the witnesses answer questions,” Salvador said.
First posted 12:09 am | Sunday, March 11th, 2012