Corona mistrial strategy bared

By accusing certain senators of being biased against him, Chief Justice Renato Corona is setting the stage for his eventual declaration of a “mistrial,” Sergio Osmeña III said Tuesday.

“I know their strategy. Their strategy is to declare there is a mistrial. There’s a pending TRO [temporary restraining order] that the Supreme Court has yet to decide on. That’s part of the game. We can handle that,” Osmeña told reporters after the ongoing impeachment trial of Corona.

On Monday, Corona filed a supplementary petition with the high court to stop the trial, claiming that certain senators have lost the cold neutrality of an impartial judge and acted as partisan prosecutors by causing the production of documents and eliciting testimonial evidence favoring the prosecution.

Corona accused Senators Franklin Drilon, Osmeña, Francis Pangilinan, Teofisto Guingona III and Alan Peter Cayetano of violating his right to due process.

Corona last week asked the Supreme Court to stop the impeachment proceedings, saying that the articles of impeachment against him were defective for lack of probable cause.

Old hat

Drilon, a member of President Aquino’s Liberal Party, said Corona’s charges were old hat.

“That’s an old issue. They raised the same issue in the motion to inhibit. Obviously they realized that it had no basis. Now they incorporate it as part of their petition to stop this court from proceeding with the impeachment. Absolutely no basis. The senator-judges are allowed questions and by our rules, the standard is that we observe political neutrality,” he said.

Drilon said the Senate impeachment court was a class of its own. “We are governed by the rules of the impeachment and insofar as neutrality is concerned. Our rules provide that the standard is political impartiality and this impeachment court is superior in adopting its own rules, which cannot be inquired or interfered with by the Supreme Court,” he said.

Pangilinan said there “seems to be a concerted effort on the part of the defense to cast aspersions on the integrity and fairness of the impeachment court.”

Answering charges

Pangilinan noted that the defense panel earlier accused the Palace of offering senator-judges P100 million in exchange for voting against the high court’s TRO on the opening of Corona’s dollar accounts.

“(Corona) should just focus on answering the charges rather than publicly attacking the impeachment proceedings,” he said. “Contrary to his allegations about the trial being a fraud, the vote of 13 to 10 is proof that the impeachment court is mindful of the concerns raised by the defense.”

The Senate voted on Monday to respect the Supreme Court TRO on the opening of Corona’s dollar accounts. The TRO was requested by Philippine Savings Bank where the Chief Justice also maintained peso bank accounts.

Pangilinan said the senator-judges “will decide on the basis of evidence and what we believe is best for the country and not on the basis of political alliances or biases.”

Search for truth

Guingona, also a member of Aquino’s Liberal Party, described Corona’s accusation as “unfortunate.”

“We’re here in search of truth, accountability and transparency,” he told reporters. “We’re just in search of the truth.”

Emboldened

Osmeña said he had to grill bank officials on Corona’s accounts to bring out the truth. “I see some gaps and I felt that in the interest of truth, which is the whole purpose of this trial, we have to bring out whatever documents pertaining to the accounts identified already.”

The senator said the Senate vote to respect the TRO may have emboldened the Chief Justice.

“Of course … The Senate has decided that it will submit itself to interlocutory orders from the Supreme Court, particularly when it pertains to the Bill of Rights. That’s fine by me. Rules are rules and we will abide by them,” Osmeña said.

A legal staff of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said he had nothing to respond to because the senator was mentioned only in passing in Corona’s petition.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the impeachment court’s vote in favor of the TRO was not necessarily a prelude to how it would decide on the fate of Corona.

“That is not an indication of anything yet,” he told reporters, noting that the matter of the TRO was “just an issue.”

“So when we go on the merits, there’s a distinction between judgment on the merits and decision on interlocutory matters,” he said.

Enrile, who turned 88 Tuesday, joined 12 other senators in voting to respect the TRO.