Ugly questions

The impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona has degenerated into an exploration of the septic tank, where excrement and washings from the private life of the respondent have been dumped, rather than a process to determine his guilt or innocence based on due process according to the rules of court.

Apart from reports based on the testimony of witnesses and documentary evidence presented at the Senate impeachment court, the news media have been saturated by reports based on the statements of the protagonists in the impeachment trial, uttered outside the court and in the wider arena of trial by publicity, the favored forum by the administration of President Aquino in its bullying campaign to condemn Corona before the public even before the court has pronounced its verdict. This battle outside the impeachment court has even become more acrimonious with Corona’s media campaign to counter the charges made by the President’s cohorts in the Cabinet and by the House impeachment panel.

Neither the President nor Corona has come out with clean hands in accelerating the intensity of their conflict in their tit-for-tat in the media. This is an encounter that is not only fueled by hate and vindictiveness but has also proved unhelpful to the impeachment court in conducting a fair trial and arriving at a credible judgment.

The debate between the contending panels in the impeachment court during the past few days has centered on issues related to how soon Corona would testify to explain his properties, as revealed in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, and his dollar deposits in local banks. The delay in his appearance is giving the prosecutors and his detractors outside the court grounds to criticize the defense that it is deliberately dragging its feet to buy time, allegedly in the belief that the longer the trial drags on, the more the public loses interest in the case, thus enhancing the prospects of Corona’s acquittal. Arguments have also been heard in the defense panel that the longer the trial, and the more setbacks the apparently inept prosecution team suffers in terms of the rulings on procedural issues issued by the Senate tribunal’s presiding officer, the more Corona would gain sympathy in public opinion. It has also been argued that the more heavy-handedly Malacañang intervenes in the trial, the more the President is perceived as a bully and the more Corona is perceived as an underdog.

The dragging of evidence and testimony concerning a long-standing dispute over a property inheritance of Corona’s wife—reported in the press and not officially introduced in the Senate tribunal—has polluted the trial. The unveiling of this material in the press has raised questions on its relevance to the impeachment case. This material is stuff for scandal sheets, not worth the newsprint it is printed on. Stories have also appeared in the press and in the Internet of alleged backroom negotiations now underway between Malacañang and Corona for his withdrawal for a face-saving formula for both sides.

These stories should be dismissed summarily because they are unverified and have no leg to stand on. Careful journalists dare not touch this yarn without putting their credibility at risk. It’s more likely that Corona would fight the case to the bitter end, after having survived the worst blows of the scorched-earth campaign unleashed by the Aquino administration. In fact, the administration has reacted with vehemence at reports of increasing possibilities of the acquittal of Corona.

On March 11, a day before the defense began the presentation of its case, President Aquino warned that the only acceptable decision was the conviction of Corona.

“Given the weight of the evidence that has been presented, the trial will end in a conviction,” a Palace spokesperson quoted the President as saying. In an interview on an online site, the President said he found it “hard to imagine” that Corona might be acquitted after the prosecution dropped five of the eight articles of impeachment.

“I find it hard to imagine not to get the result that I would want,” the President said. He cited discrepancies between Corona’s declared assets and the money in his bank  accounts.

“You swear under oath to the truthfulness of the [SALNs]. Then you’re going to tell me he gets acquitted? I think you can imagine how difficult it is for me to imagine such a situation,” he said.

The President was making a pronouncement on the weight of the evidence of the prosecution, although he is not accredited as a participant. He is an outsider offering gratuitous advice of little probative value in the trial. If he were not President, the court could have hustled him out as a nuisance. He is not a prosecutor.

He is not a judge at the trial. And yet, he is pronouncing judgment, usurping the function of the Senate court. He is telling senator-judges how they would vote in the way he wants it to happen. If he were an ordinary citizen, the judge would have declared him in contempt of court.