Senate needs to assert supremacy as impeachment court

MANILA, Philippines—A senator allied with the administration on Tuesday asked the Senate to assert its “primacy” and “supremacy’ as an impeachment court over the Supreme Court as the latter continued to refuse to send its employees to the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“My concern, Mr. President, what happens next as we go through this trial? What other orders or rulings will the SC undertake thereby whittling away the powers of this impeachment court?” Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said addressing his question to the presiding officer, Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile.

Pangilinan raised this question after Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares, a member of the prosecution, informed the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, of the Supreme Court’s decision against the subpoena issued to its two employees.

Pangilinan asked the Senate to put the issue into a vote like what it did when the high tribunal issued a temporary restraining order on the subpoena issued to the dollar bank account allegedly owned by Corona.

“I feel Mr. President, unless we assert the primacy and supremacy of the impeachment court in impeachment proceedings, Mr. President, we might find ourselves in a joint venture or joint undertaking with the impeachment court in terms of impeachment proceedings and therefore the sole power to try and decide impeachment cases becomes fiction, Mr President. This is my fear,” he said.

But Enrile said the Supreme Court was simply invoking its own internal rules when it refuses to allow members and employees of the judiciary to testify before the impeachment court.

“To be fair to this court, to be fair to our people and to be fair to everybody, this chair would like to humbly state for the record that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over the trial and decision that this Senate will make in this case. That is not indicated by the actions of the Supreme Court,” he explained.

“SC is the guardian of the Constitution. They know that the sovereign people of this country repose to the Senate the sole power to try and decide this case. What happened was that we issued a subpoena and the internal rules of the Supreme Court, which is a co-equal , separate independent and coordinate department, says: ‘We have our own internal rules on this matter and we don’t allow our judges, justices and employees to be subpoenaed by the impeachment court’. That’s another matter. It does not deprive us of our jurisdiction to try and decide this case,” Enrile said.

Before this, Colmenares expressed his disappointment and apprehensions with the Supreme Court’s decision, saying it deprived the prosecution team an opportunity to get public records from the high tribunal which they could use as evidence against Corona.

“Ano po ba ang itinatago ng Korte Suprema sa hukumang ito?” asked Colmenares.

Enrile noted the prosecutor’s manifestation but pointed out that each three branches of government—the judiciary, legislative and executive— has its own internal rules to follow.

“I can’t see any way we can break this system. This is the system that is authorized under our form of government and the only way by which we can break this if you want to control the Supreme Court or you want to be more superior than the Supreme Court or you want one department to be more superior over the other department of this government would be to amend the Constitution,” he said.

“And that’s the function, not your function or my function or the function of the President or the Supreme Court, but the function of the sovereign people in this country. They are above us,” Enrile added.