Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Chief Justice Renato Corona is taking a gamble in opting to face his accusers, according to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.
Sotto acknowledged on Wednesday that Corona’s appearance in his impeachment trial could greatly influence voting in the 23-member Senate tribunal on his fate.
He said 13 to 15 senator-judges remained “undecided” and would await the response of the Chief Justice to allegations he has been keeping $10 million in his bank deposits.
“For this big bulk of undecided, the finishing (presentation) would be crucial and to include the Chief Justice, I think, is a very good move on the part of the defense,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview a day after Corona’s camp announced that he would take the witness stand.
In an informal gathering early this week, a number of senators tackled the possibility that 10 of them might already be leaning toward convicting Corona, said a source present in the affair, but who was not authorized to discuss the matter in public.
Given the supposed number, the prosecution would still need six votes to secure a conviction. Corona needs only eight votes for acquittal.
By Sotto’s reckoning, only three to four senators appear to have made up their mind on convicting the Chief Justice. He mentioned the same estimate for senators seemingly leaning toward acquitting Corona.
“If you will notice, there are highly polarized members of the Senate in our view and the reading of the people is there are three to four on either side who would be hard to convince otherwise, who seem decided already,” he said.
Sotto said the undecided groups include the bloc of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, to which Sotto belongs, and the Nacionalista Party (NP) bloc of Sen. Manuel Villar.
The Enrile group includes Senators Gregorio Honasan and Jinggoy Estrada. Villar’s NP bloc includes Senators Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Loren Legarda, Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and siblings Alan and Pia Cayetano.
“At the moment, we are open-minded,” he said, but added he was unsure whether the Villar group would “vote as a bloc.”
“I presume that most of them will base their decision after they’ve heard fully the defense,” Sotto said.
Ramon Esguerra, one of Corona’s defense counsels, refused to buy into the numbers game.
“Neither the Chief Justice nor anyone of us in the defense would like to venture into predicting the vote or judgment of any member of the Senate,” he told the Inquirer by text. “That will be speculation, pure and simple. As a lawyer, (I believe) it is still the law and the evidence that matter.”
“All he needs to do is tell the truth. Stick to the truth, you can’t go wrong,” the senator said. “If everything is explained, how can you convict? If he cannot explain, how can you acquit? The issue is that simple.”