President Benigno Aquino III furiously fanned the flames of conflict between the Chief Executive and the Supreme Court when he denounced the high tribunal for issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Friday, barring prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona from inspecting his dollar accounts in Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank).
In a blatant interference in the trial, the President unleashed the attack at a time when the Senate impeachment court was in the midst of examining voluminous evidence against Corona who has been accused of betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption. The attack was tendentious and touched on the merits of the evidence which is now within the jurisdiction of the tribunal to adjudicate. It was also inflammatory amid rising public tensions over the trial that has run for more than three weeks.
In a double-barreled attack on the court, the Palace barrage was quickly followed by broadsides from presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, who claimed that the Senate might become “a puppet of the Supreme Court” if it allowed the court to interfere with its decisions as the “sole” trier of impeached officials, such as the Chief Justice.
When asked to comment on the views of some senators that the Senate as an impeachment court should obey the Supreme Court’s order that stopped the examination of Corona’s dollar accounts, Lacierda said, “What would happen if you allow all interference from the Supreme Court?”
He was reacting to statements of Senators Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor-Santiago that the impeachment court should comply with the TRO lest it risk a confrontation with a coequal branch of government that could “end in the streets.” Lacierda responded: What would happen to the Senate impeachment court? Be a puppet of the Supreme Court so that all its actions can be questioned by the Supreme Court?
The comment appeared to be an expression of opinion, as well as making a cheap point of trying to pit the Senate against the Court.
Sub judice rule
It was not clear whether in his intervention, Lacierda, who is a lawyer of still unproven gravitas in the bar, was trying to display his mettle as a legal luminary, or he was acting merely as a political mouthpiece of the President. If he acted in the latter capacity, his intervention did not prove helpful to a fair trial and it demonstrated the magnification of presidential firepower to bully Corona and the court (at least the eight justices who voted for the TRO).
Lacierda’s needless intervention followed the President’s instant statement to the press, in which he commented on the evidence in disrespect of the impeachment court. The President transgressed the grounds of the sub judice rule in judicial proceedings by commenting on the evidence being adjudicated by the Senate tribunal. The President said Corona’s alleged “$700K” (understood in popular parlance as $700,000) in PSBank contradicted the P23 million he had declared in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
The President gave his own opinion, not just asserting facts, when he said the law protecting foreign deposits from undue scrutiny was not intended to protect criminals and their loot. He said bank accounts should be opened to inspection if the owner had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. He warned of economic sanctions from the international community as a result of the TRO on the examination of Corona’s foreign currency deposits.
In asking Corona to voluntarily open his dollar accounts to scrutiny to prove he had nothing to hide, the President said:
“Those who committed an injustice should not take refuge in this particular law. If you are a thief—and I’m not saying the accused is a thief—but if you are a thief, can you simply put your money in a foreign currency account and evade investigation? I don’t think that is what the law is for.
“It is a all right to encourage foreign currency and depositors, but certainly we do not want to attract drug lords from other countries and entice them by saying, ‘Come here, your foreign currency deposits won’t be investigated at all.’”
These comments raised some questions among observers who asked in what capacity did the President state these views—as a prosecutor arguing the government’s case against Corona in the tribunal or before the bar of public opinion? The reluctance of PSBank in complying with subpoenas of the tribunal to disclose Corona’s bank accounts stemmed from a compelling reason associated with the bank’s criminal liability if it disclosed the accounts.
Heavy-handed intervention
PSBank president Pascual Garcia III, who testified at the tribunal last week, said: The Foreign Currency Deposit Act, specifically Sec. 8, states: “All foreign deposits authorized under this act are hereby declared as and considered of an absolutely confidential nature and, except upon the written permission of the depositors, in no instance shall … be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office, whether judicial or administrative or private.”
The heavy-handed intervention of the presidential office at this critical stage of the trial appeared to signal the renewal of the administration’s campaign to put pressure on Corona to resign in the midst of the trial after its plan to drive Corona to quit with a carpet bombing unleashed by the administration and the House prosecutors when they dumped on the public arena tons of derogatory evidence on Corona ahead of the start of the trial on Jan. 16 failed to accomplish the objective to force Corona to withdraw.
Supreme Court’s last stand
The Senate is in a quandary over whether to obey the court’s TRO. The dilemma is even more difficult to resolve after the executive department disobeyed a previous TRO that barred the justice department from enforcing its hold-departure order on ex-president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in November last year. This new TRO issue is up for decision at the Senate caucus today, which promises to be a critical turning point in the impeachment trial. The court has not hesitated to put its existence on the line as an independent constitutional body and the final arbiter of the law of the land. The TRO could be its last stand.
Opinion is fiercely divided between two camps of legal experts, one the liberal view urging the impeachment court to heed the TRO, and the other, the progovernment view holding that if the TRO were followed, it would make the impeachment court a puppet of the Supreme Court.
The Senate tribunal is unclear on what to do—obey or defy. It plans to question the TRO, presumably at the Supreme Court. Drilon has claimed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has asked him to ask Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza to defend the Senate if the TRO goes up to the high court for review. The move is curious. It raises the question (from nonlawyers) the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) is the government’s lawyer, does this not put the OSG and the impeachment tribunal on the same side?
Another nonlegal question that has disturbing political implications: Should the Senate tribunal decide to disobey the TRO, is it prepared to plunge the last dagger in the assassination of the Supreme Court already mutilated by the campaign of the Aquino presidency of total demolition of the independence of the judicial system anchored on the rule of law?