The unorthodox was abused

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile was taken advantage of. What? JPE taken for a ride? That is an incredible news of the most startling order.

Unfortunately, that was my perception of what took place on the day Chief Justice Renato Corona took the witness stand in the impeachment trial against him. It was revealed last week that the chief magistrate would testify as the last witness for the defense. In fact, in order to give time to the battery of defense lawyers to prepare their client for an expected lengthy direct and rigorous cross examinations, the hearing dates were cancelled and moved to Tuesday. Due process, of course, demanded it. Even if the witness would no less be than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court himself, he would still have to be prepared by his counsel to avoid a dictum that says: “He is a fool of a lawyer who has himself for a client”.

After he was sworn in to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Chief Justice Corona asked to be allowed to give an opening statement. It was, to say the least, unorthodox or something I have not ordinarily seen in court proceedings. But, it was, being unprecedented, not an ordinary trial. So, what I knew did not apply. I have retired from active law practice for more than ten years now and perhaps, I had not updated myself enough to claim the unorthodoxy of the request of the chief justice.

The opening statement I know is that which is shown on television where the prosecutors and defense counsels, before actually calling their witnesses to testify, outline, for the jurors, the presentation of their case. In a jury system, that is ideal considering that the jurors, who are ordinary citizens plucked for all walks of life, are not necessarily lawyers.

Senate President Enrile allowed the “opening statement”. Maybe he also thought that like those done before jurors, it was going to be, as an outline of his defense, brief. He too, must have been eager to picture that outline.

After few minutes had gone by and the respondent was starting to talk of irrelevant matters, I thought the opening statement, as patterned from a jury system, became functus oficio. The chief justice was going out of allowable bounds. In the course of his untrammeled narration, he was already making assertions that should have normally been elicited by proper questions. Some of his statements, if only made in response to questions, would have been properly objected to. But it was not to be so as his was supposedly be an opening statement.  

Rightly then, the private prosecutor, probably uncomfortable by the unorthodoxy of the situation, stood up, not just once, and respectfully raised legitimate objections. The senate president, beyond cautioning the chief justice in legalese lingo, over ruled the objections of the private prosecutor and allowed the respondent to go in his narrative ways. At a much later time, the high priest of the impeachment court gave an insight into why he allowed the unorthodox. He had high respect for the respondent and more importantly, for the institution he stood for.

The narration was long. Surely it was not an opening statement. It contained declarations that had nothing to do with the impeachment. For instance, there was a lengthy discourse on the Hacienda Luisita. I am not a fan of the president of the republic, whose family is believed to own the hacienda, but Pres. Aquino was pilloried by the chief justice. The referral to the president could have been validly objected to but in that situation, where the chief justice took advantage of the liberality of Senate Pres. Enrile, the objection could not be raised.

Another issue the chief justice dwelt on extensively was, to me, outside of the scope of the trial. I refer to the Basa Guidotes. If only Senate President Enrile did not allow that unorthodox “opening statement”, that malicious imputation on the character of a deceased person could not have surfaced.

Anyway, this article was due at 3 pm yesterday. By that time, the expected re-appearance of the chief justice might have materialized. Hopefully, the court did further allow the unorthodox. I remember that Chief Justice Corona belittled the testimony of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales as without sufficient basis but he forgot to show us evidence to back up his claim. I hope that the cross examination told us the true story.

P.S. The failure of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona to appear yesterday was equivalent to not appearing at all because his testimony, without cross examination, would be stricken off the record. Actually, his non appearance simply validated my earlier suspicion, which I wrote about in succession, that he would not testify.