Arroyo House ally defends Corona defense team vs prosecution

Rep. Danilo Suarez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The minority in the House of Representatives on Wednesday cautioned the prosecution from branding the members of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s defense team as lawyers of the crooked and corrupt.

Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said it was unfair for the prosecutors to malign Corona’s lawyers when they themselves had lawyers in their team who represented the accused in criminal cases.

He cited private prosecutors Arthur Lim, the counsel for Sulpicio Lines Inc. in the sinking four years ago of its MV Princess of the Stars, where all but 32 of the 820 passengers survived; Jose Justiniano, the counsel of US Marine Cpl. Daniel Smith, who was convicted of raping “Nicole,” a Filipino woman, in Subic, Zambales, in 2005; and Vitaliano Aguirre II, who represented Hubert Webb in the Vizconde murder-rape case.

Suarez was reacting to a statement made by a prosecution spokesperson, Quezon Representative Lorenzo Tañada III, before the start of the impeachment trial on January 16.

“I know for a fact that these lawyers have been successful in getting many criminals off the hook in the past. A number of them have represented GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) and her cronies and even generals accused of corruption,” Tañada said.

Suarez said he hoped that the prosecution would stick to issues and not to personalities in pushing its case.

“We know that the prosecution has a weak and rushed case, and this is proven by its desperation to include ill-gotten charges that were clearly not part of the original articles of impeachment,” he said.