Corona’s and Carpio’s assets

The trial in the Senate of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona begins today. It would be “The Greatest Show in the Philippines” for the next two or three weeks—if dilatory tactics are not used to delay the trial.

From all indications, the defense team of Chief Justice Corona has anchored his defense on legal technicalities. It is questioning the verification by congressmen of the impeachment complaint signed by 188 members of the House of Representatives. It is a common trick of lawyers— when the facts are not favorable to them—to resort to legal technicalities. This is one of them.

But it is a basic principle in law that in case of a conflict between the substance and the letter of the law, substance takes priority. In the case of official acts by public officials like congressmen, there is always the presumption of regularity until proven otherwise. On the issue of the verification of the impeachment complaint, the Supreme Court itself has long held that a verification “is a formal, not jurisdictional, requirement.” Even in situations where a verification may be construed as defective or inadequate, “a court may simply order the correction of unverified pleadings or act on them and waive strict compliance with the rules.” (Bello v. Bonifacio Security, citing Ramirez v. CA and Altres v. Empleo) Thus, even assuming that there was no strict compliance with the rule on verification, the remedy is simply to order it corrected or waive the requirement and proceed with the trial.

In the case of the present impeachment, the fact that 188 members of the House indisputably signed the impeachment complaint should be enough to close this trivial issue. Their signatures and votes for impeachment more than adequately comply with the constitutionally required vote of one-third of all the members of the House.

The more significant and substantial requirement is the vote, and there is no doubt that it was obtained. Harping on what the courts themselves have designated as a mere “formal” requirement, or worse, insisting that this formal requirement should derail the impeachment process despite an overwhelming vote for it, is a misguided notion that upholds the letter but kills the spirit of the law.

Furthermore, the Senate should grant the respect due to its co-equal chamber of Congress, by accepting the implied certification arising from the fact of its submission of the verified complaint to the Senate, that the constitutional requirements have been complied with. Article XI, Section 3(2) of the Constitution grants the House “the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.” The House has declared that it has initiated the process and impeached the Chief Justice. This should settle the issue. The Senate should simply accept this determination by its co-equal chamber and proceed with its own constitutional duty to conduct the trial.

It is not surprising, however, that Corona’s legal team and their sympathizers in the Senate have raised this issue. It has been the hallmark of lawyers’ strategy to avoid substance and nitpick on technicality. If the evidence is not in your favor, prevent the presentation of that evidence by preventing the trial through a technicality.

Even in the face of an overwhelming vote of 188 members of the House supporting the impeachment and endorsing it to the Senate for trial, Corona’s lawyers still, with straight faces, claim that the complaint is defective and should be thrown out for insufficiency in form and substance.

It should be remembered that ultimately, the political character of impeachment gives primacy to the sufficiency of numbers. This is the key point that Corona’s defense team is hell-bent on ignoring: that he was overwhelmingly impeached by the House. Ignoring that vote and harping on a trivial technicality insult the integrity of the House and do violence to the interests of the Filipino people, whose will is sovereign.

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The wealth of Supreme Court justices has become an interesting sidebar to the present impeachment trial, especially with the assets of Chief Justice Corona being mentioned in the propaganda war.

As stated here before, only the Chief Justice, not the Supreme Court, is involved in the impeachment, and definitely not the entire Judiciary. Obviously, there are quarters that seem to include the entire judicial bureaucracy.

Obviously to counter the stories on the assets of the Corona family, which they cannot afford on their legitimate incomes, unconfirmed reports were spread that Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Corona’s main “rival,” owned an 800-square meter penthouse condominium unit with a swimming pool at Avignon Tower on HV dela Costa Street, Salcedo Village, Makati. This came out as Carpio released the summary of his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) for 2010 to Newsbreak and to Kaya Natin Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership. The summary indicated that he reported a net asset of P47,269,928 for that year.

Carpio was one of only two justices who authorized the release of their SALNs, the other being Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Last Thursday, Carpio sent a clarification to the Inquirer. “My family owns one of the two units on the floor below the penthouse, and there is no swimming pool in our unit,” he wrote. “Our unit is reported in my SALN.” Carpio added that the Avignon Tower has been his residence even before he joined the Supreme Court.

Recently, US-based immigration and human rights lawyer Ted Laguatan, who writes a column for Inquirer.net, claimed ownership of the disputed penthouse.

With these clarifications, it is clear that the public was simply misled. Who benefits from the lies peddled?