Impeachable offense

As if the bumbling of the prosecutors and the fixation of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s defense counsels with legal technicalities were not exasperating enough, here come senator-judges groping for what would suffice for an impeachable offense. Sen. Joker Arroyo led the charge, daring the prosecutors during the impeachment trial last Thursday: “Give us evidence that has reached the level of an impeachable offense. As I keep repeating, it’s not just any offense. It must be a higher bar because we are removing a chief justice.”

Sen. Francis Escudero added: “Assuming that the Chief Justice was caught jaywalking on video, that is a violation of law. But is that the nature of impeachment? Or if he gives P500 to someone in the [Land Transportation Office], is this the nature of an impeachment? Kindly educate us on the gravity of the level of the crimes that would be considered impeachable.”

Now, is Chief Justice Corona’s alleged dishonesty in filing his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) sufficient to convict him of betrayal of public trust?

Of course, dishonesty is a strong word. There appears wide disagreement between House prosecutors and defense counsels, and between the senators themselves, on whether Corona’s failure to correctly report some pieces of property and the acquisition costs of those reported amounted to betrayal of public trust.

Quezon City Rep. Erin Tañada, deputy spokesperson of the prosecution, said the Supreme Court did not consider dishonesty a petty crime when it upheld the dismissal from office of a Bureau of Internal Revenue official in a 2008 decision over having accumulated pieces of property and investments grossly disproportionate to her income and not disclosing these in her SALNs.

But what if the failure to fully disclose the worth of a property was an oversight? Sen. Ralph Recto cited Civil Service Commission rules and regulations providing that an official who made an erroneous entry in his statement, “shall not be sanctioned” if he made a correction “in good faith.”

Part of the problem here is that the prosecution really hasn’t gotten its act together. For example, it took nearly two hours last Thursday for private prosecutor Clarence Jandoc to disclose what really the point was about the testimony of an official of the Burgundy Plaza Realty Corp. regarding the purchase in 1997 of a unit by Corona and his wife Cristina. After some prodding from Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, it turned out that Corona had not declared in his SALN that he had purchased as well a parking slot that went with the unit for P450,000.

Later on, House prosecutor Rep. Elpidio Barzaga noted that Corona’s SALNs from 2002 to 2010 “left some blanks insofar as the acquisition cost is concerned.” He argued that Corona’s failure to “accurately” declare the acquisition cost of some pieces of property amounted to “the highest form of betrayal of public trust.”

The defense, for its part, is saying that the Bellagio property, originally priced at P24 million, was acquired by Corona for P14.5 million because of a discount given to him by the developer. Giving discounts, Sen. Manuel Villar, himself a real estate tycoon, said was industry practice.

On Day 11, it seemed that some senator-judges were still unclear as to what constitutes an impeachable offense, others even struggling to raise the “bar” for “removing a chief justice.” In the process, it looked like it was laying the ground for the lowering of the standards of integrity required of high public office.

If it would help any, may we refer senator-judges, if indeed it is not clear to them what an impeachable offense is, to last Sunday’s column of former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, specifically, to the final line: “As the people’s alter egos, senators have wide discretion in deciding whether the respondent is still fit and qualified to continue occupying the highest judicial office in the land.”

It may serve them as well to remember that even minor public officials have been sanctioned and even dismissed because of minor infractions including dishonesty. Certainly for a high-ranking government official—the head, no less, of the third branch of government—to have fallen short of truthfully and candidly declaring his SALNs should not be considered a piddling matter.