Prosecution to summon associate justice, clerk of court

Supreme Court Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

A member of the House prosecution team will ask that Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco and Clerk of Court Enriqueta Vidal be summoned to testify on whether impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona had misled the public on the Supreme Court’s decision allowing former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to travel abroad.

Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares said he would ask that the Senate subpoena Velasco “to shed light on the irregularities detailed in Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s dissent regarding the promulgation of a resolution” that he issued on November 28 explaining the high court’s decision.

Colmenares said the prosecution would like to pin down Corona for declaring as valid the temporary restraining order issued on the watch-list order of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Arroyo despite the high court’s 7-6 vote that the conditions for the TRO were not met at the time of her attempt to leave the country on November 15.

“[This charge] is serious and may be used as additional evidence to prove … Corona’s partiality to protect Gloria Arroyo and allow her one more chance to escape for abroad. While the court decided that the TRO is not effective until its conditions are met, the Chief Justice through Justice Velasco declared the TRO effective.  Article VII, which is already a strong case for impeachment, has suddenly become one of the strongest charges in the impeachment complaint,” Colmenares said in a statement.

He said Clerk of Court Vidal would be asked to testify on how Corona, through Velasco, ordered the “censorship” of Sereno’s dissenting opinion.

Bias for Arroyo

Colmenares is the lead prosecutor of the seventh article of impeachment, which accuses Corona of betrayal of public trust and bias for Arroyo, as purportedly shown in the issuance of the TRO that would have allowed her and her husband to escape prosecution.

Arroyo was arrested three days later, November 18, when the joint DOJ-Commission on Elections panel filed an electoral sabotage case against her at Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 114.

Colmenares said he was disturbed by the fact that Velasco “did not contest the accuracy” of Sereno’s dissent and merely claimed that the purported irregularities were “confidential.”

“I hope he will not persist in using ‘confidentiality’ and ‘privileged communication’ in the Senate,” Colmenares said.

“Secrecy is certainly not a good way of convincing the people and the Senate of the innocence of the Chief Justice. In fact, people will look at that as an admission of guilt,” he said.