Senate won’t call solons to testify

MANILA, Philippines–The Senate sitting as an impeachment court on Monday denied the request of the defense team to subpoena five congressmen and an official of the House of Representatives to testify in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The subpoena requested by lawyers of Corona was for the appearance of House Secretary-General Marilyn Yap, and five congressmen in connection with the defense team’s allegation that the verification of the impeachment complaint was defective.

“Since the purpose of the subpoena is to present evidence on the circumstances of the verification of the articles of impeachment, which has been previously ruled on by this court when it considered the motion for preliminary hearing filed by the defense,” Senate president and presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile said at the resumption of the trial on Monday.

“The request is hereby denied,” Enrile said.

The Senate also denied a motion by the defense team to formally dismiss the five articles of impeachment that were already dropped by the prosecution team.

“Regarding the motion of the defense to formally dismiss Articles 1, 4, 5,6 and 8 of the Articles of Impeachment, the impeachment court in a caucus decided not to act, not to entertain and act on the motion to dismiss with the clear understanding however, that no evidence from both prosecution and defense panels will be received by the impeachment court on on Articles 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8,” Enrile said.

“And furthermore that the members of the impeachment court will not render any vote on Articles 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8 and that no verdict of the impeachment will be rendered on Articles 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8,” Enrile said.

The complainants listed eight charges in the impeachment complaint against Corona but the prosecution team decided to present evidence only for Article 2 (Corona’s alleged failure to disclose to public his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth), Article 3 (Corona’s alleged lack of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence) and Article 7 (Corona’s alleged partiality in granting a temporary restraining order on the government’s watchlist order against former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo).

After presenting their evidence for the three articles , the prosecution decided to rest its case and dropped the five other charges.

But Corona’s lawyers filed a motion to seek for a formal dismissal of the dropped charges for fear that the same charges would be used against the Chief Justice after the one year ban period for filing impeachment cases against the same official.

Enrile also reiterated the Senate’s decision to deny another motion of the defense team to suppress what it claimed as  illegally obtained evidence against Corona pertaining to testimonies of bank officials and documents they presented before the Senate.

“The motion to suppress illegally obtained is hereby denied for lack of merit,” said the Senate leader.

Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito’ Sotto III noted that the motion was voted on unanimously by the impeachment court.

The Senate also decided to admit some of the offer of evidence of the prosecution team but not the evidence that tends to prove bribery since the crime was not alleged inArticle 3 of the complaint.

On the defense team’s motion to deny the prosecutor’s reservation to present additional evidence on Corona’s alleged dollar accounts, Enrile directed both parties to refer to the court’s ruling on the motion to suppress illegally obtained evidence.

“All of the requests are denied for the record,” Sotto said.

The Senate meanwhile granted a motion by the prosecution team to order the defense team to submit its order of presentation of evidence.