23 senators vote today on Chief Justice Corona’s fate

By this afternoon, the country will know whether Chief Justice Renato Corona will remain in office or get off through perceived loopholes in the law.

All his defenses are mere “palusot” (lame excuses), said Ilocos Norte Rep. Rudy Fariñas, one of several speakers assigned to give closing arguments of the prosecution.

Deciding the impeachment case will take only an hour — and the decision will be final.

After a 43-day trial, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and his 22 colleagues will each take 60 minutes, or even less, to vote to decide whether to remove Corona from office.

“It will be over in an hour,” said Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said. He added that he might skip his explanation if it would take longer than the required time.

Most of the senators are aware that the vote will be one of their most crucial decisions in the 15th Congress, with far-reaching repercussions on the the Aquino administration’s campaign for reforms and its relations with the Supreme Court.

“Things like an impeachment have a life of its own apart from the legislative function of the Senate,” Sotto said. “That’s why, the vote will be crucial.”

The senators will be called alphabetically to vote, except for Enrile who will be called last, and, if they wish, may explain their votes for not more than two minutes.

The vote is historic vote in the sense that the first impeachment case tried by the Senate from late 2000 to early 2001 — involving President Joseph Estrada — did not reach this stage.

GOOD FAITH

Defense lawyers insisted Corona was under no legal obligation to declare his dollar deposits and even if he was called upon by law to do so and did not comply, this was not an impeachable offense.

Lawyer Eduardo de los Angeles said that Corona could not be held liable for not declaring his bank deposit of $2.4 million in his SALN “because he believes in all good faith in the absolute confidentiality of foreign currency deposits.”

“The defense has shown that the Chief Justice relied on sound legal basis for his position—and in all instances, guided by good faith and without malice,” said De los Angeles, former dean of the Ateneo law school, in the final oral arguments.

He said that the confidentiality provision in the Foreign Currency Deposit Act (Republic Act No. 6426) was “absolute.”

Ilocos Norte Rep. Fariñas, in his closing argument, said Corona concealed 98 percent of his financial assets in clear violation of the public trust and of transparency provisions of the Constitution.

By his summation, Corona did not report P180 million in hard cash kept in various bank accounts, referring to the sum of the $2.4 million (about P100 million) the Chief Justice deposited in four banks and the P80 million in “commingled” funds in three others.

[Corona declared only P3.5 million in cash and investments in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) for 2010.]

Fariñas accused Corona of resorting to “palusot” in attempting to explain his failure to include the deposits and high-end real properties in his SALNs.

Fariñas also noted that Corona had told Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile that he started investing in dollars “in the late 1960s” when the peso-dollar exchange rate was P2:$1. Corona graduated from the Ateneo high school in 1966, from college in 1970 and from the Ateneo law school in 1974, the prosecutor said. The 1969 exchange rate when Corona was in college was already P3.90:$1, according to Fariñas.

The lawmaker said the Chief Justice “wants us to believe that when he was in grade four in 1959, he was such a visionary that he already started buying dollars.” “It’s clear that it’s palusot and lying to the Senate,” he added.

CONFIDENTIAL

Defense lawyers dismissed the prosecution’s position that Corona’s interpretation of the law would encourage corrupt public officials to convert their stash into dollars and hide behind the confidentiality of RA 6426.

“Let us not mistake the Chief Justice’s use of this interpretation for the possibility of its abuse,” De los Angeles said. “In this case, there is no showing that the non-inclusion of certain bank accounts was tainted with any malice or fault.”

“What we have here is a situation where the Chief Justice, consistent with his practice for the last two decades, assumed that his reliance on the letter of law could not be wrong,” he added, pointing to an apparent “gap” in the law.

De los Angeles said Corona “acted consistently, unwavering in his conviction and belief that RA 6426 afforded him full and absolute confidentiality.”

But assuming that Corona’s non-inclusion of his dollar deposits in his SALN was not “justified,” his defense counsel argued that the omission did not “amount to an impeachable breach of trust.”

In his closing remarks, Serafin Cuevas, Corona’s chief counsel, asked “if there is jurisprudence (saying) that a mere deficiency, a mere inaccuracy made by the filer of the SALN is constitutive of a ground for impeachment which they claim now? If it is not an impeachable offense, then why are we building up matters after matters to the prejudice, not only to the life, honor and reputation of the Chief Justice but (also of) his entire family?”

The defense lawyers shrugged off the prosecution contention that RA 6426, a 1974 law, had been overtaken by the SALN provision in the 1987 Constitution.

Corona’s lawyers pointed out that the SALN law also stated that this should be enforced “in the manner provided by law,” ostensibly referring to RA 6426.

The defense said Corona was being persecuted as part of a plot by Malacanang to control all branches of government.

“It is our fervent hope that the Senate will not lend its assistance to this plot. Let not this institution allow the guillotine to fall on judicial independence.”