MANILA, Philippines - Congressmen-allies of President Aquino moved swiftly yesterday to impeach Chief Justice Renato Corona for alleged betrayal of public trust, violation of the Constitution, and graft and corruption.
In a dizzying turn of events, 188 of them signed an impeachment complaint drafted by the committee on justice, leveling eight charges against Corona.
Members of the Liberal Party-led majority coalition in the House of Representatives convened in a caucus at past 3 p.m.
At 7:40 p.m., Deputy Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella, who presided over the session, ordered House Secretary General Marilyn Yap to transmit the impeachment complaint to the Senate.
The number is nearly twice the minimum 95 signatures needed for transmittal.
Malacañang denied it had a hand in the impeachment of Corona.
Emerging from the caucus while several of his colleagues were still queuing to sign the complaint, Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., committee chairman, said, “I think by tonight, the House will formally impeach the Chief Justice and send the charges to the Senate for trial.”
“We have more than enough signatures to bypass the committee and transmit the complaint directly to the Senate. The rules require only the votes or signatures of one-third of all House members, or 94, for direct transmittal,” he said.
Mindoro Oriental Rep. Reynaldo Umali said that with an overwhelming number of House members having signed the complaint, “Chief Justice Corona is virtually impeached.”
He said the plan was for the presiding officer in last night’s session to read the complaint and send it to the Senate.
If the plan materializes, the House, under Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., makes history by impeaching a chief justice of the Supreme Court (SC).
Corona might turn out to be the third impeachable officer to be impeached in the post-martial law history of Congress.
The first was former President Joseph Estrada, who was deposed while still under trial by the Senate. The second was former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, who resigned days before her Senate trial.
Tupas said his committee has enough evidence and witnesses to support the impeachment charges against Corona.
“We are accusing him of betraying the public trust because of a track record of bias and partiality in cases involving former President Arroyo. We are accusing him of culpable violation of the Constitution when he failed to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth,” he said.
The complaint alleges that Corona also violated the Charter “by failing to meet and observe the stringent standards… of competence, integrity, probity and independence in allowing the Supreme Court to act on mere letters filed by a counsel… (and) in creating an excessive entanglement with Mrs. Arroyo through her appointment of his wife to office; and in discussing with litigants regarding cases pending before the Supreme Court.”
In the complaint, the House members accused the chief justice of betraying the public trust by manifesting partiality in the grant of a temporary restraining order “in favor” of Mrs. Arroyo and her husband “to give them an opportunity to escape prosecution and to frustrate the ends of justice.”
As for the impeachment offense of graft and corruption, the complaint accuses Corona of allegedly failing and refusing to account for the Judiciary Development Fund and Special Allowance for the Judiciary collections.
“We have evidence to prove that the Chief Justice used public funds for his own personal purposes,” Tupas told reporters.
The complaint also cited the status quo ante order the SC issued against the House when the latter was in the process of impeaching Gutierrez. The House also cited the SC’s flip-flopping decisions on the conversion of 16 towns into cities and Dinagat Island into a province. Lawmakers also took note of the high court’s paving the way for the creation of the second district of Camarines Sur to accommodate Mrs. Arroyo’s son Dato.
Cavite Rep. Jesus Crispin Remulla said the impeachers are so overwhelming in number that “Chief Justice Corona should better resign.”
Umali said, “If the chief cannot stand the heat and to further avoid embarrassment for the Supreme Court, he should consider resignation as an option.”
Deputy Speaker Raul Daza said under the Constitution, an impeachment trial in the Senate is to be presided over by the Senate president and the chief justice.
“Since Chief Justice Corona is the respondent, then only the Senate president will preside over the trial,” he said.
Rep. Florencio Noel of the party-list group An Waray, who chairs the House accounts committee, said they were aiming for 200 signatures. The House has 286 members.
Those who signed the impeachment complaint were members of the LP, Nationalist People’s Coalition, National Unity Party, and party-list groups.
Amid the caucus, seven militant party-list representatives asked for time to make a collective decision. An hour later, they came back to affix their signatures on the complaint.
No plot
Despite the seemingly clockwork precision the impeachment move unfolded in the House, there is no plot by lawmakers to destabilize the SC, according to Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo.
“What is taking place in Congress is the ‘crystallization of divergent views and opinions’ and the ‘emergence of a new consensus’ among lawmakers on the SC’s treatment of the cases involving former President Gloria Mapacagal Arroyo and her cohorts,” Castelo said.
“The chief apologist and mouthpiece of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona was going too far when he described as ‘destabilization’ what appears to be the crystallization of divergent views and opinions on how the SC, under Corona’s leadership, has been treating those cases involving Arroyo and her cohorts,” Castelo said, referring SC spokesperson Midas Marquez.
“It was an error in judgment, or paranoia, on Corona’s part to speak through his mouthpiece and to describe wrongly as destabilization the emergence of a new consensus among lawmakers that the SC has been favoring Arroyo and her ilk in those cases,” he said.
“The crystallization of divergent views and opinions and the emergence of a new consensus among lawmakers do not in anyway destabilize the country. While they challenge Corona and his former boss, what has been taking place is part of the democratic processes and should therefore be recognized and accepted,” Castelo said.
“Only a twisted mind can conjure malice and ill will to the ongoing democratic processes,” he said.
Castelo also urged the House leadership to look into the circumstances that surrounded Corona’s “midnight appointment” as chief magistrate.
“The way the SC has decided and sustained Corona’s appointment as chief justice leaves much to be desired, as it has raised more questions than settle the issue,” Castelo said. “I strongly doubt if any judicial doctrine has been laid down by the SC decision.”
He also questioned Corona’s “moral courage” to speak his mind, saying the chief justice even had to speak through a spokesman on issues of grave concern.
“It’s a sign of moral courage to speak out one’s mind regardless of the consequences. Why Corona could not even speak for himself amid the serious accusations on his performance as the chief magistrate shows his moral fitness to handle the job,” Castelo said.
He stressed that impeaching an official with questionable integrity is a “constitutional duty” of lawmakers and not a destabilization effort.
“Any exercise of this constitutional duty should never be construed as destabilization of the judiciary. It is part of the corrective mechanisms, which the Constitution specifically provides, and therefore should be viewed as such,” Castelo said.
‘Mother of blackmails’
It’s the “mother of all blackmails,” said opposition leader Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman of the impeachment move by his colleagues against the Chief Justice.
Lagman said many of the administration lawmakers “were blackmailed into signing the impeachment complaint by threatening those who would refuse to sign with the deprivation of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and other funding releases for their respective districts.”
“The Supreme Court justices are being blackmailed not to decide pending cases against the Aquino administration, otherwise the wrath of impeachment will be on them,” the minority leader said.
“We hope the senators who will act as impeachment judges will be strong and judicious not to succumb to similar blackmails,” he said.
“The derogation of our democratic institutions is almost complete with the emasculation of the House of Representatives, the violation of civil liberties, the impairment of the rule of law, and now the destruction of the Supreme Court and the judiciary,” he said.
The opposition bloc held a meeting at noon at the Batasan Pambansa complex but broke up after an hour while still in the dark as to the outcome of the meeting of their administration counterparts held in the other wing of the main building. It’s not yet clear what step the opposition will take next.
“What can we do when they (majority) have the numbers?” Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay said. “This proves that the Aquino administration is hell-bent in railroading anything,” she said.
“Can the Filipinos stomach this? This is a blatant assault on the rule of law,” she said.
House Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said they would try to rally Filipinos against the “dangerous attacks against the judiciary.”
“As a lawyer, I have a different appreciation of the issues, and it is already the Supreme Court that we’re talking about,” Deputy Speaker Remulla told reporters earlier in the day.
Palace hands off?
Malacañang, for its part, denied any hand in the impeachment efforts against Corona even as it stressed that an impeachment proceeding is a constitutional process and not a demolition job.
“We really do not know what necessitated the response from them,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, referring to Corona’s denunciation of alleged ouster moves earlier in the day.
“It is surprising that the response is as strong in a (short) span of (time) – overnight. But I will not be able to judge that it’s panic,” Valte said. “I am not saying it is uncalled for.”
But Valte said Corona should not be questioning the impeachment process because that was stated in the Constitution.
“Impeachment is an accountability mechanism that is found in the Constitution itself. So we fail to see how it can be equated to a demolition of the judiciary or its independence. It’s constitutionally provided for,” Valte said.
Valte said that in his last two controversial speeches, the President had only questioned the decisions of the SC and no mention of impeachment was made.
“Impeachment was never mentioned and from our view point it was just the President being a citizen and as the Chief Executive raising questions on the official actions of the SC,” she said.
“Raising questions on official actions can never be construed as a direct assault. We have check and balances, not one branch of government is isolated from the other,” Valte said.
“Again the judiciary remains to be independent. There is no meddling in how they come up with their decisions. There is no meddling as to how they conduct their daily business. What the President was sending is to raise question on official actions,” Valte said.
Off the hook
Meanwhile, Lagman said SC Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo might have already escaped impeachment since the 60-session-day deadline for the House committee on justice to submit a report on his case has already lapsed.
“When we convene on a particular day pursuant to our calendar, that is counted as one session day, whether or not there is a roll call, a quorum is established or the session is adjourned or merely suspended,” Lagman said.
“I am having the number of days when we actually convened since the complaint against Justice Del Castillo was referred to the committee on justice early this year, and I think the 60-day deadline for the committee to submit a report to the plenary has long lapsed,” he said.
For Tupas, a session day “is a day when we convene, a roll call is conducted, the presence of a quorum is declared, and we adjourn.” Two of his committee’s vice chairmen, Rodolfo Fariñas of Ilocos Norte and Miro Quimbo of Marikina, agree.
Tupas said there was “enough time to complete the impeachment process at the committee level, assuming that is the direction we will take.”
After Del Castillo submits his answer to the complaint, Quimbo said the committee would meet again “to determine sufficiency of the grounds for impeachment.”
“After that, we will have one more hearing to determine probable cause. In short, we only require at least three more hearings to terminate the process. That should be well within the remaining 10 session days of the 60-session-day deadline,” he said.
“If I am voted down, I will raise it in plenary. If I am defeated, I will elevate this issue to the Supreme Court, which should be the final arbiter of what a session day of the House or the Senate is,” Lagman said.
According to the House website, the Del Castillo case was sent to the Tupas committee on Feb. 2 this year.
Since then up to yesterday, there were 87 days that Congress was supposed to be in session based on his calendar. It was in session Jan. 17 to March 25, May 9 to June 9, July 25 to Oct. 14, and from Nov. 14 up to Dec. 16.
Lawyer Oliver Lozano, for his part, called on House members to support his impeachment complaint against Aquino. “I am appealing to members of Congress to endorse my complaint instead of entertaining the move to impeach the Chief Justice to avert the creeping reign of terror,” he said. With Paolo Romero, Aurea Calica, Perseus Echeminada