What’s the fuss about Drilon?

The defense panel of Chief Justice Renato Corona decried the meddling by Senator Franklin Drilon in the impeachment trial. They think it was improper for the senator-judge “to come to the rescue” of the prosecutors who were fumbling at the evidentiary hearing. (Inquirer, 1/20/12)

In the face of overwhelming technical objections from the defense, the prosecutors were obviously stymied and thrown off balance.  Overall, none of them could match the perspicacity and legerity of the most jaded lawyer in retired Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas.

We are reminded of what moss-laden jurisprudence instructs lawyers about the practice of law: “A litigation is not a game of technicalities in which one, more deeply schooled and skilled in the subtle art of movement and position, entraps and destroys the other. It is rather a contest in which each contending party fully and fairly lays before the court the facts in issue and then brushing aside as wholly trivial and indecisive all imperfections of form and technicalities of procedure, asks that justice be done on the merits.

Lawsuits, unlike duels, are not to be won by a rapier’s thrust. Technicality, when it deserts its proper office as an aid to justice and becomes its great hindrance and chief enemy, deserves scant consideration….” (Alonzo v. Villamor).

Notwithstanding laborious preparation and study deep into the night, no trial lawyer is ever prepared enough to deal with a witness whose state of mind he cannot control. The witness could suddenly get fidgety and flighty and blurt out unexpected answers.  More often than not, asking “leading questions” is the only way to get the truth out.  And the difficulty can be exacerbated by the most compelling objections from the opposing counsel.

In such contretemps, it is not uncommon for trial judges to “come to the rescue” and elicit testimony from witnesses by asking “leading questions” themselves just so the trial can move on – to the consternation of the other counsel (who really cannot do anything about it, much less object to the judge’s questioning).   That kind of intervention (intended to “blunt the rapier’s thrust,” as it were) is not reversible error per se.  It takes more than just that to ascribe partiality to the judge.  It is only when his bias becomes more manifest in some other ways that he is deemed to have crossed the line.  But at the end of the day,  if such intervention results in ferreting out the truth, rather than suppressing it,  the trial judge stands on sound and solid ground.

But be that as it may, during the impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada, the senator-judges at that time displayed their partisanship quite egregiously – one even danced after scoring a point for Erap!   Seriously, what’s the fuss about Drilon’s “rescue” attempt?

—STEPHEN L. MONSANTO,

Monsanto Law Office,

Loyola Heights, Quezon City;

[email protected]