Palace says it cannot dictate on behavior of senators

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang said yesterday it could not dictate on how the senator-judges in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona should treat the House prosecution team.

House Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II appealed to senator-judges on Sunday not to embarrass prosecutors in the ongoing impeachment trial, saying lawmakers should be treated with dignity.

Gonzales said the prosecutors were elected by the people and therefore must be treated with respect.

Asked if the Palace would support the call of Gonzales, Valte said “that is something that is part of the subjective opinion of the House and how it will be treated, we will leave to the discretion of the senators.”

“Whatever the perceptions will be, whatever our individual judgments are on what is happening, what matters really is how the senators view the proceedings,” she said.

Valte said it would be difficult to meddle with the “behavior and conduct” of the senators.

“They are independent, they are senators of the republic. We believe that they know how best to comport themselves as we have seen in the past seven days of the trial,” she said.

In a related development, veteran lawyer Romulo Macalintal asked the impeachment court yesterday to suspend the trial of Corona until the recess of the Senate in March to allow senators to deliberate on urgent bills.

In a six-page letter addressed to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Macalintal said the impeachment court may have to consider resetting the trial hearings to the recess set from March 24 to May 6 “to avoid a prolonged trial due to prosecution’s move to present 100 witnesses.”

“Clearly, the senators, when sitting as judges in an impeachment proceeding, do not perform legislative functions which is essentially apart from that of their usual legislative functions which could be gleaned from the mere fact that they have to swear unto a ‘new oath’ prior to their assumption of office as magistrates in the impeachment court,” the lawyer said.

Macalintal, independent analyst of the trial, believes there would be no postponement of the impeachment proceedings since there is “clear delineation of the senator’s legislative and non-legislative functions.”

He added that “the postponement of the impeachment proceedings due to Congress’ recess may violate the constitutional right of the accused to a speedy trial and the right of any person to a speedy disposition of his case before all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies.”

The veteran lawyer cited the 2004 case of Pimentel Jr. vs. Joint Committee of Congress as the authority of the impeachment court to continue with its proceedings even if Congress is on recess.

Macalintal said that the Pimentel case distinguished between the legislative and the non-legislative functions of the lawmakers, such as that of being the National Board of Canvassers, to canvass the votes for president and vice president.

He cited the various opinions of then Supreme Court Justices Conchita Carpio-Morales and Adolf Azcuna that while the final adjournment of the regular session of Congress may have terminated the lawmakers’ “regular legislative functions,” such adjournment “does not necessarily affect its non-legislative functions which, by specific and express mandate of the Constitution, Congress is mandated to carry out and finish its task.” – Edu Punay, Evelyn Macairan