Is Corona morally fit to remain in office?

As Chief Justice Renato Corona’s impeachment trial proceeds — various arguments, witness statements, items of evidence and tons of trial related data crisscross our minds. To get back on track, we need to repeatedly ask ourselves this critical question of fact. It embodies the core issue in this impeachment trial.
The honest answer to this question is the sum and substance of what this case is all about.

We all want a better Philippines where one third of our people do not have to go to bed hungry at night; where hungry little Filipino children do not have to dig into stinking garbage cans for scraps of rotting food — condemned to a life without a decent future.

So much of this mass human suffering is directly caused by endemic institutionalized corruption present in all branches of government.

Billions of pesos of taxes collected by government from the people should be returned to them in the form of various infrastructures like roads, bridges and railways; and services promoting  health, education, peace  and order, etc. Instead, hundreds of millions go to the pockets of corrupt officials and their co-conspirators.

Items such as milk which should feed hungry babies, books for poor students, medicines for indigent patients, housing for the homeless, remain undelivered because of corruption.

At the end of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), the government was practically bankrupt. Money in the treasury was emptied due to rushed government expenditures allegedly transacted to fill already loaded pockets with more corruption money.

We cannot — should not — allow massive stealing from the people by government officials to continue. If they remain unpunished, there will be more Marcoses, Estradas and GMAs in the future doing more of the same, causing more suffering to our people.
Based on the facts, charging GMA with plunder and other serious crimes is proper and in line with punishing and stopping public corruption. But the Aquino Administration must carry on a more aggressive widespread scorch earth campaign against other corrupt officials as well if it is to make a significant difference in changing Philippine society for the better.

But eradicating or minimizing government corruption will not happen unless corrupt officials are successfully prosecuted in court. But what if court officials are themselves corrupt? Of all government officials,  justices and judges are the least subject to scrutiny and prosecution. They are hardly subjected to lifestyle checks. As such unchecked corrupt justices and judges seriously hinder the campaign against corruption.

This is what Corona’s impeachment trial is all about. It is in line with the goal to clean government. Unseating the head of the Judicial Branch does much good, assuming he is guilty as charged. But that alone does not clean up the entire rotten court system. Other corrupt Justices and judges should also be removed and bold effective reforms instituted.

President Simeon Benigno Aquino who continues to have tremendous support from the people is in a rare position to do all these.  He must not waste this golden opportunity. He must be more aggressive in accomplishing real observable results.  He has only four years left. If he fails, he will have only himself to blame. He has all the powers and influence to achieve much.
The “midnight appointee” Chief Justice and other Arroyo appointed Justices represent the majority in the Supreme Court. As their apparently biased decisions have repeatedly favored GMA, they are widely perceived as placing the Arroyos’ interests over that of the people.

When a Corona-led Cabal of Arroyo Justices issued an ex parte TRO against the government’s travel ban on GMA without a hearing, the camel’s back broke. The House of Representatives subjected him to this impeachment trial with backing from Aquino. Nothing wrong with that. This is what most Filipinos want and he has their support. We are all tired of unpunished corruption.

The prospect of GMA and her husband being exonerated even if found guilty in the lower courts — because they own the Supreme Court — may be horridly unthinkable but is a very real possibility.
An Impeachment Court composed of members of the Senate has been convened and the Chief Justice of the Philippines  accused of certain crimes which if found guilty subjects him to removal.

The House of Representatives prosecution panel accuses him of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of  public trust, among other things. Had they known the enormity of his peso and dollar cash assets in various bank accounts prior to formal discovery, arguably, they might also have charged him with bribery. Unless he secretly won the lottery, how else could he explain the source of his extraordinary wealth?
The Constitution provided for the establishment of an Impeachment Court by the Senate so that at certain times when it becomes necessary, it can determine whether or not  an important official seriously erred and if so, be removed from office.

Questions pertaining  to the admissibility or non-admissibility of evidence and other legal issues which permeate the proceedings are simply collateral questions of law. Mingled with these are the unending criticisms by the Presiding Officer of the prosecution’s competence supplemented by the irritating condescending lecturing of a seemingly  know it all senator. Interlocutory and procedural matters also come to play now and then.
Aside from all these, the defense and prosecution spokespersons add supplementary presentations to the public on TV and other media sometimes coupling these with spin yarns that are either interesting or best ignored. Nothing wrong with all these. Both sides provide valuable service to the public with their contrasting viewpoints.

Corona himself has turned his predicament into a political affair holding rallies in front of the Supreme Court giving tear-filled speeches and staging the impression that he  has mass support.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer and other media reported that the estimated 7,000 attendees  in his most recent rally were mainly Iglesia ni Cristo  (INC) members. Corona’s chief lawyer Serafin Cuevas is known to be a high ranking official of the INC.

At times, all these happenings in court and out of court  may tend to distract, misdirect and derail Senator-Judges and the people from the directions this Impeachment Court should take. If so, they can always return to the main highway by repeatedly asking:
“Is the accuse Renato Corona morally fit to remain in office.”

In a trial, evidence comes in many forms including paper evidence, physical evidence, circumstantial evidence, witnesses’ statements or whatever.

The strategy of Corona’s defense team from the very start is obvious: keep any kind of evidence involving his financials or other matters touching on his moral character from being revealed. Cuevas has practically cited all the grounds for excluding evidence with his serial objections. One could play a betting game with others at the start of every hearing to see which one is closest to guessing how many times he would blurt out “Objection, your honor!”.

This is followed by claims of: “Immaterial”, “irrelevant”, “argumentative”, “misleading”, “hearsay”, etc.

While either he or the Presiding Judge has prevented a lot of serious evidence from being admitted which would have been very damaging to Corona, ironically, the prevention of critical evidence from being admitted is arguably equally damaging to Corona or maybe even more so  in so far as the public perception is concerned.

Shielding the exact amounts of his dollar deposits in five accounts in just one bank suggests a lot about his culpability and begs the following question to be asked:

“The prosecution claims that one account alone contains 700 thousand dollars. If this is not true and if he is innocent and has nothing to hide, why therefore is he blanketing the amounts involved in his dollar accounts?

This is only the second impeachment trial in the Philippines. The first one  involved the impeachment of  former President Joseph Estrada which was not even completed.

It was truncated in the middle of the deliberations because a majority of eleven  blatantly pro-Estrada loyalists voted not to open an envelope believed to contain damning important bank records. As a consequence, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel resigned followed by a walk out of the prosecutors. One declared: “It is clear to us that the judgement of the Impeachment Court will not be reached on truth that the people seek.”

The walkout triggered the EDSA 2 people power leading to the forced removal of Estrada.

Side note. Four of the eleven pro Estrada Senators are also involved in this Corona trial: Enrile, Defensor-Santiago, Sotto and Honasan.

Is this impeachment process Philippine style a good system to remove an erring high official?

For lack of original thinking, the Philippines simply adopted the American system.  In theory, it looks okay. In practice, even in the U.S. where partisan politics  can also sometimes play havoc on achieving worthy goals,  it’s not always a good system. But in general, it works there because of firmly entrenched democratic institutions and more Senators are involved – 100 as compared to the present 23 in the Philippines. More thinking  goes into the process.

For example; the Republicans attempted to mis-use or abuse the impeachment process to remove the very popular President Clinton from office – claiming that Monica Lewinsky doing some lip service on Bill and him lying about it – amounted to an impeachable offense. The Senators correctly acquitted him citing that the interaction between the two was a private matter which did not affect public interests nor his official performance as President.
However, in third world Philippines, democratic institutions are not as deeply rooted and the application of legal principals is often unpredictable. Politics mixes with endemic corruption and cultural traits involving: debts of gratitude (utang na loob), partisan positioning, personal and group loyalties. Also,  16 votes are needed to convict  and only eight are needed to acquit Corona.)

And even if Corona’s wrongdoing, if proven, clearly affects the country’s best interests, some Senator-Judges nevertheless will not vote according to what is  right and just, but according to personal agendas – as shown in the Estrada impeachment trial. It is also obvious to the public that certain Senator-Judges identified with GMA or those with some personal motives – do their best to exclude telling evidence that could reveal much about Corona’s character.
All these combine to make this present system of impeachment in the Philippines a terribly unreliable system in removing erring high officials.

Based on the country’s experience in the Estrada impeachment trial, this impeachment system as it currently stands does not work and will not accomplish its purpose in removing erring officials. It did not work in the Estrada trial which forced the people to go to the streets. It likely will not work now.

For it to have a decent chance to work, the Senator-Judges and the people must be constantly aware of the fundamental purpose for which the Impeachment Court exists. It exists primarily to determine whether or not an accused key official is morally fit to retain his or her position. The issue of technical competence is not an issue. Moral character is the main issue.

As such, any evidence that touches on the moral character of the accused should be material and relevant.  Evidence relating to his honesty and integrity should definitely be allowed such as: Unexplained enormous wealth; lying in one’s SALN; false income declarations; accepting expensive gifts of free first class international flights and huge real property discounts from litigants (which are clearly unethical and  just another form of bribery).
The Senator-Judges and the people should be provided with all the evidence and information that can help them answer the critical question of fact:

“Is the accuse Renato Corona morally fit to remain in office?”

With no disrespect intended to the Presiding Senator and the Senator-Judges, prior to the February 23, 2012 Thursday hearing, this impeachment trial had not been proceeding  along lines consistent with the Impeachment Court’s reason for being.  So much evidence relating to the accused’s moral character were being excluded.

The trial was being conducted like a criminal proceeding where the standard of proof in proving guilt appeared to be the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard – which is not the way an impeachment court should proceed.

Under these parameters, removing Corona as Chief Justice is about as probable as Manny Pacquiao becoming pope. The nation suffers heavy consequences if it is unable to remove a high ranking official even if it is obvious that he has engaged in wrongful conduct – if  the reason is because the mechanism for removal is practically inutile.

It will be an unpalatably ugly situation if practically everyone knows the accused is guilty as hell but cannot be removed from office. Terribly bad for the country. Not only will our citizens seethe with anger and frustration, we lose credibility in the global community because of our screwed up justice system.

But after I watched last Thursday’s trial, there is some glimmer of hope that at least Presiding Judge-Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, a strong personality with a controversial sometime villain-sometime hero image who wields tremendous influence – now has a clearer understanding of which direction the Impeachment Court should go – in so far as standard of proof and admissibility of evidence is concerned.

It shows good faith on Enrile’s part in announcing that he had read a book on impeachment trials written by Charles Black, a highly respected genius and Yale professor on Constitutional Law. And as such, he now correctly concludes and announced for the first time – that  the standard for proof in this impeachment trial should not be “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” but the lower standard of “clear and convincing evidence”.

He also states that hearsay evidence can be submitted for a qualified purpose. This is in line with providing the Impeachment Court with as much information as possible about the accused’s moral character – in order to come up with the right decision. Hallelujah.
The book Enrile was referring to is “Impeachment, A Handbook”, by Charles Black, Yale University Press, published May 10, 1999.

Based on Enrile’s recent pronouncements and rulings re admissibility of evidence and standard of proof, it appears that his viewpoint regarding these issues has been dramaticallly influenced or altered by Black’s book. Every Senator-Judge acting in good faith and who wants to make an honest decision should read this book.

The Estrada impeachment experience and happenings in the current Corona trial indicate  that certain Senator-Judges are incapable of taking the high road. Many of the Senators are admirable highly principled men and women – but because the impeachment system requires only eight Senators to vote against impeachment for Corona to walk – there is a strong possibility that he will.

Corruption darkens the intellect and some Senator-Judges will not be able to give an honest answer to this simple question which the ordinary well-meaning citizen can easily answer.

“Is the accuse Renato Corona morally fit to remain in office?”

They will avoid this question  when they vote for acquittal like politician Pontius Pilate

asking: “What is truth?” – meaning: “There’s no such thing as truth.” Poor souls.

Note: Atty. Ted Laguatan is based in the San Francisco area. He is honored by the California State Bar as one of only 29 lawyers officially certified as Expert-Specialists in Immigration Law continuously for more than twenty years. He also does human rights and complex litigation cases involving accident injuries and wrongful death. Email [email protected] Tel 650 991-1154