“Fishing expedition” was how Serafin Cuevas and company described prosecution’s attempts to pump information from BIR chief Kim Henares last week. Their point being that prosecution was just improvising along the way, looking for things that might work.
Well, there are fishing expeditions and fishing expeditions. Defense itself launched its own fishing expedition last Thursday, proposing to have Franklin Drilon inhibited from the impeachment trial for “carrying the cudgels” for the prosecution. “The actions of Drilon have sparked controversy even among members of the viewing public,” defense said in a 15-page motion. “The initiative he displayed can be construed as unequivocal demonstration of his allegiance to the cause of the prosecution.”
Well, defense is hardly in the best position to speak for the viewing public. The viewing public is not its ally, it is its enemy, which its own allies among the senator-judges acknowledged a while back by trying to prevent the trial from being televised, and failing that, by repeatedly warning against “trial by publicity,” whatever they meant by it. If the public reacted in any way to Drilon’s apparent spirited defense of the prosecution, and defense’s subsequent prosecution of him for it, it is only in amusement at the ironies it offered. The public would have been reminded that we are having this impeachment to begin with because Renato Corona, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s midnight appointee, stands accused of acting to keep her out of jail.
That is the one thing that has sparked controversy, which is putting it benignly. The ironies are rich. Defense wants Drilon sanctioned because he managed to get Enriqueta Vidal to present Corona’s statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) in court, something prosecution failed to do. Did it aid prosecution? Arguably, though that could also be argued to be an unintended effect. More importantly—for the public—did it aid the truth? That is far more arguable: Wherever Drilon was coming from, his “intervention” brought out information vital to the trial.
On the other hand, defense’s very words about Drilon describe perfectly what Corona has done: “The initiative he displayed can be construed as unequivocal demonstration of his allegiance to the cause of (Arroyo).” Has it aided Arroyo? Yes, whatever legal ruse can be trotted out to obfuscate it. Has it aided the truth? No. Wherever Corona is coming from—and the inquiry about his sudden prosperity during Arroyo’s time must have something to say about that—his 19-0 vote in favor of Arroyo has hidden it.
Defense may keep reminding the world about Drilon’s bias, but it is not doing its client a favor by it.
From the other end, prosecution has a defense for its own “fishing expedition.” It’s not so at all, it says. Even in an ordinary court, where strict court rules apply, that is allowed. You can always introduce new evidence along the way to back up your case. In this particular instance, the prosecution says, it already has a basis for charging Corona with betrayal of the public trust even without Henares’ revelations, but her revelations refine and strengthen its position and so it is using them. The prosecutors could already see the forest if not the individual trees, as it were, when they filed the charges. If these trees add more details to the forest, why not add them to the picture?
Commendably, Juan Ponce Enrile allowed Henares’ testimony to be heard, even if he ruled that prosecution may not use it to argue corruption, which is not directly and unequivocally specified in its brief. I leave them to debate if prosecution’s use of the word “suspected” to allege corruption naturally voids it. Suffice it to say here that whatever the results of that debate, Henares’ testimony would already have bared Corona’s sins before the public. That is a veritable crown of thorns on the Chief Justice’s head.
If Corona’s SALNs and/or records in the BIR’s alpha list are to be believed, he earns less than me. Yet he has been able to buy a unit in Bellagio, quite apart from houses in La Vista and elsewhere, while I have been able to buy only a 72-square-meter unit in Pagasa BLISS and a 36-square-meter unit in a Phinma housing project near Tandang Sora. Others will doubtless have their own comparisons about their wealth relative to Corona’s. However you slice that, that is corruption.
Corruption is the difference between the things you own that you divulge as required by law and the things you own that you do not divulge as a matter of self-preservation. The difference in this case is massive. That is massive corruption.
Defense may hem and haw about legal technicalities, its allies among the senator-judges may hem and haw about legal procedure, but as far as the public goes, that about clinches the argument. Lest we forget, the issue in this impeachment is not whether Corona should be jailed or not, it is whether he deserves to remain chief justice or not. Although his freedom itself could be at stake afterward: Falsifying tax returns is a punishable crime.
By presenting Henares, prosecution has reduced the question quite simply to this: Does a Chief Justice, who gets virtually next to nothing in income but gets to buy next to everything in residences, deserve to remain chief justice? Does a Chief Justice, whose wife has no visible source of income (as reflected by her not paying taxes at all) but is able to buy an P11-million house in La Vista, deserve to remain chief justice? Does a Chief Justice who, along with his wife, has no way of maintaining an extravagant lifestyle but is able to provide his children with one, housing them in extravagant homes, deserve to remain chief justice?
Maybe prosecution has been fishing. But it knows damn well where to cast its line.