Senate suspends Corona impeachment trial until March 12

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate has suspended the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona until March 12 to give both the prosecution and defense panels time to complete the process of offering and scrutinizing the evidence that has been presented so far.

Lead prosecutor Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. said the prosecution would submit its written formal offer of evidence tomorrow after they decided to end their presentation of the case.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile gave the defense panel five days upon receipt of the prosecution’s offer of evidence to submit its response.

The court would then decide on which pieces of evidence would be accepted or rejected.

This means that the court will have only two weeks left before members go on their Lenten break until May 6.

Defense panel spokesman lawyer Tranquil Salvador said they would need five to six weeks to present their case to the court.

If the defense manages to keep its schedule, the senator-judges would have at least one week to digest the presentations of the two sides and come out with their respective decisions on the case.

That will be one week before Congress goes on sine die adjournment on June 8.

The prosecution has formally withdrawn Articles 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8 of the Articles of Impeachment against Corona and would rely solely on Articles 2, 3 and 7 to seek a conviction of the Chief Justice.

Article 2 covers the non-disclosure of his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth while Article 3 provides that the Corona committed culpable betrayal of public trust. Article 7 tackles partiality in granting the temporary restraining order (TRO) in favor of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and husband Mike Arroyo to allow them to leave to escape prosecution.

Sen. Francis Escudero expressed concern that the withdrawal of the five Articles of Impeachment might be considered a substantial amendment that would require consultation of all 188 signatories of the complaint in the House.

Tupas had earlier admitted that there was no formal consultation with the signatories and that the prosecution panel only consulted Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II.

“We were given full discretion, blanket authority on how to present the case. It’s a prosecutorial discretion. And now we are waiving our right with respect to the five others. And we, as the Senate President puts it, we will stand or fall on the three articles, namely Articles 3, 7 and especially 2,” he said.

Escudero expressed fear that the move might still “constitute an amendment of the complaint which might present several other complications that we might not be prepared to encounter and face given the problems we have been seeing in connection with the trial.”

In the meantime, Enrile advised the prosecution panel to stop making pronouncements on their confidence of winning the case.

He cited statements made by the panel both in court and during its press briefings on the outcome of the trial.

Tupas, in his manifestation before the court last Tuesday, said they “have already presented a strong case and the evidence that we have laid down suffices for the removal from office of Chief Justice Renato Corona for betrayal of public trust with the presentation of Articles 2, 3, 7.”

Enrile informed the court that the statements made by the lawyers of both sides do not serve any purpose as far as the trial is concerned.

“You are putting this court in a very serious predicament because you already made a pronouncement about the weight and the quantum of evidence that you have presented for your side,” he said.

“No one can be sure of the outcome of the case. Even if you have presented your evidence, we’ll wait for the completion of the entire trial until a judgment can be pronounced.”

Enrile said “no lawyer, even those with extensive experience, can ever be sure of the outcome of the trial until the entire case is over.”

“So please do not make sweeping statements outside that may befuddle or confuse the people or convince them that panalo na kayo (you have already won).”

“No one has won yet. Don’t be too confident. And then after the case you will say that we lost because the senators were bribed, because our case is strong. That is not how trials are done. I hope you will take this advice because we have to be truthful to our people,” Enrile said.

 Encompassing catchphrase

As the House prosecution team wraps up its presentation of witnesses and offer of evidence in court, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo expressed belief that betrayal of public trust “is an encompassing catchphrase that includes acts that are not necessarily punishable by criminal laws.”

Quimbo made the assertion even as the Senate impeachment body has yet to define what constitutes “betrayal of public trust,” one of the grounds included by the prosecution in the impeachment complaint against Corona.

Citing records from the Constitutional Commission of 1986, Quimbo noted that framers of the 1987 Constitution focused on the morality of an impeached official to stay in office.

Under Article XI Section 2 on Accountability of Public Officers, the grounds for impeachment include culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, other high crimes, graft and corruption or betrayal of public trust.

“As you may have read from the records of the Constitutional Commission discussions on betrayal of public trust, they clearly said that it refers to an all-encompassing catchphrase that includes acts that are not necessarily punishable by criminal laws,” Quimbo told The STAR.

He said betrayal of public trust is simply a determination if a person “is still morally fit” to continue his or her stay in office.

“It talks of a mere breach of one’s oath of office. Simply, the issue becomes a determination, not of whether the respondent has committed a crime or not, but rather if a person is still morally fit to continue staying in office,” Quimbo explained.

Quoting from the records of Constitutional Commission of 1986 (Volume Two, pp. 272), Quimbo noted that it was Concom member Florence Regalado who questioned what the committee envisions as a betrayal of public trust, “which is not otherwise covered by the other terms antecedent thereto.”

It was at this point that another member, Ricardo Romulo, discussed the concept that public trust “is connected with the oath of office of the officer.”

“If he violates that oath office, then he has betrayed public trust,” Romulo explained in the Concom debates.

“I think, if I may speak for the Committee and subject to further comments of Commissioner (Rustico) de los Reyes, the concept is that this is a catchall phrase. Really, it refers to his oath of office, in the end that the idea of a public trust is connected with the oath of office of the officer, and if he violates that oath of office, then he has betrayed that trust,” Romulo was quoted as saying.

In the transcript of Concom debate records, De los Reyes explained that he proposed the inclusion of betrayal of public trust as an additional ground of impeachment because of a failure in an attempt to impeach former President Ferdinand Marcos during his time.

“The reason I proposed this is that during the Regular Batasang Pambansa when there was a move to impeach then President Ferdinand Marcos, there were arguments to the effect that there is no ground for impeachment because there is no proof that President Marcos committed criminal acts which are punishable, or considered penal offense,” De los Reyes said.

“And so, the term ‘betrayal of public trust’, as explained by Commissioner Romulo, is a catchall phrase to include all acts which are not punishable by statutes as penal offenses but nonetheless render the officer unfit to continue in office. It includes, betrayal of public interest, inexcusable negligence of duty, tyrannical abuse of power, breach of official duty by malfeasance or misfeasance, cronyism, favoritism, etc. to the prejudice of public interest and which tend to bring the office into disrepute,” De los Reyes explained to his colleagues then.

Another member, Jose Nolledo, argued “when the President tolerates violations of human rights through the repressive decrees authored by his Minister of Justice, the President betrays the public trust.”

On the issue of culpable violation of the Constitution, Quimbo also referred to discussions that it “means willful and intentional violation of the Constitution and not violation committed unintentionally or involuntarily or in good faith or through an honest mistake of judgment.”

Framers of the Constitution also agreed that “culpable violation implies deliberate intent, perhaps even a degree of perversity for it is not easy to imagine that individuals in the category of these officials would go so far as to defy knowingly what the Constitution commands.”

Then member Hilario Davide added that on impeachment, the Committee has now added as another ground the betrayal of public trust.

During the discussions, the framers also noted that culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, other high crimes, graft and corruption should be stretched to the meaning of betrayal of public trust.

Nolledo stressed that the violation of the oath of office does not necessarily constitute any of the foregoing instances.

But Davide stated that violation of an oath of office is itself a violation of the Constitution because a public official’s oath is in the Constitution.

“The provision says that the violation must be culpable. Suppose it is not culpable, it will not be categorized as such, but is it serious enough to justify the impeachment proceedings?” Nolledo said.

In any case, Davide pointed out that “even the violation of the Constitution is betrayal of trust.”

Move to cut evidence presentation welcomed

Meanwhile, administration and opposition lawmakers welcomed the move by prosecutors to cut short their presentation of evidence and witnesses.

Lawmakers belonging to the so-called Movement 188 – pertaining to the number of congressmen who signed the impeachment complaint against Corona – said “enough basis has been presented thus far anyway to the Senate impeachment court to convince senator-judges that the midnight appointee is not morally fit to stay a minute longer at the helm of the Supreme Court.”

“This move by the 11-member House prosecution panel to wrap up our case against the CJ after presenting just three of our eight Articles of Impeachment against him will spare our nation a lengthier trial – and lead to Corona’s eviction from the SC sooner than later,” the group said in a statement.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, a member of Movement 188, said their optimism on a guilty verdict at this stage stems from the declaration last week by Enrile that the strict rules of evidence prevailing in criminal court proceedings do not apply in the impeachment court, “so much so that the prosecution need not present proof beyond reasonable doubt to win a conviction.”

“In fact the best proof that the Senate court seems heading for a conviction is the state of panic that has seized the Corona camp to the point that its lawyers have been cooking up destabilization scenarios on the pretext of a ‘mistrial,’ in an 11th-hour attempt to abort the trial and get their client, the midnight appointee, off the hook on the three impeachment articles already presented by the prosecution,” he said.

House Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said he was “heartened by the decision of our House colleagues in the impeachment panel.”

“Regardless of the reasons, we can only welcome the return of common sense to our colleagues and an early end to this ugly, partisan exercise – one that has taken up so much legislative time in both the Senate and the House, as well as putting at risk the reputation, not only of the Chief Justice, but even of our colleagues in the prosecution,” he said.

He, however, said the opposition bloc had already asked the House committee on banks and financial intermediaries to investigate the circumstances behind the leaking of documents on Corona’s bank accounts by the prosecutors.

“There are no partisan motives here, only a desire to protect the good name of the country’s banking system as well as the welfare of millions of bank depositors,” Suarez said. – With Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero