Tilting moment of Corona’s trial

Chief Justice Renato Corona returned to the witness stand of the impeachment trial in the Senate on Friday to face his accusers once more, as he had promised, a wounded warrior.

Disobeying doctors’ orders, Corona told his family and friends, “I would rather die standing on my feet,” as he limped back to the courtroom to resume his testimony.

Corona’s appearance was interrupted on Tuesday after he suffered what his lawyer claimed was an attack of hypoglycemia—a spell of dizziness—as a result of diabetes. According to Corona’s son-in-law, Constantino Castillo, a physician, the Chief Justice experienced a sudden drop of his blood sugar level that prompted his sudden departure.

The walkout sparked a backlash of condemnation from the senator-judges who accused Corona of disrespect of the court for exiting without its permission.

Upon his return to the court on Friday following his confinement at The Medical City in Pasig City, he apologized and explained the indecorous behavior was “not a protest or walkout.”

He said that he still had two pages remaining in his opening statement, which he failed to read when the spell took place.  “I was in a total state of confusion,” Corona said.

“Because of my confusion, I felt that I was about to throw up and I didn’t want it to happen in front of the camera.”

The court accepted the Chief Justice’s apologies and explanation (no one disputed these, indicating the judges took the explanation at its face value), and promptly went back to work to conclude unfinished business.

More remarkable than the amazing medical rebound of Corona was that within two hours of the resumption of the trial, the court managed to compress its agenda to be able to confidently decide to hold the final arguments today and  hand down the verdict by tomorrow afternoon—all these in less time than it took Corona to read his opening statement for three hours last Tuesday.

Proceedings accelerated

These developments allowed the tribunal to make decisions to accelerate the impeachment process, such that by 5:45 p.m. on Friday, the court declared the prosecution and the defense panels were deemed to have rested their case, and for Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to declare the case had been formally submitted for resolution.

Within this time constraint on Friday, Corona withstood  grilling by senator-judges calmly without mishap. His health did not fail him this time.

In his testimony, he admitted that he held $2.4 million in four dollar accounts and P80 million in peso accounts.

Corona testified that the P80 million, mostly in “commingled” funds, could be broken down in several deposits. He explained that his family invested the commingled funds because the larger the deposit, the larger the interest.

The Chief Justice said he had been investing in foreign currency since the 1960s when the peso-dollar exchange was P2 to $1. But he said he did not report his dollar accounts because the Foreign Currency Deposit Act (FCDA) guaranteed the confidentiality of such accounts.

The prosecution has alleged that the Chief Justice culpably violated the Constitution and betrayed public trust through his repeated failure to include some of his properties in his statement of assets and liabilities and net worth (SALN).

New Palace spokesperson

There is debate among senator-judges on this issue, with Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago arguing that the nondisclosure of his account in his SALN was not an impeachable offense, and Sen. Franklin Drilon, who has been hostile to Corona during the trial, contending that “that is a totally erroneous interpretation.”

Drilon said that “there is no question that a dollar deposit is an asset, and it’s twisted logic that you need not report (this)  because it is strictly confidential. That’s absurd.”

He added, “If you interpret it in that manner, then a corrupt official will simply convert the money he has stolen into dollars, and deposit these, and he has no obligation to report it.”

Drilon echoed the Aquino administration’s line although the President has his own official spokesperson.

This is one of the key legal issues that the Senate tribunal has to resolve in its final arguments today. The issue involves the apparent incompatibility of the law on SALN and the law on the confidentiality of deposits under the FCDA.

On Friday, Corona submitted an unconditional waiver on his accounts in his SALN in an effort to show transparency and allow the public to scrutinize them.

The new waiver replaced the one he filed on Tuesday on condition that Drilon and the 188 congressmen who signed the articles of impeachment transmitting them to the Senate for trial to sign the waiver, an attempt to show up the hypocrisy behind the trial.

Tilting moment

The congressmen protested that they were not respondents in the impeachment case. Only one took up the challenge, Kalinga Rep. Abigail Ferroil, the youngest member of the House at age 27. She hastened to add, “I have no dollar accounts.”

After a closed-door caucus to decide what to do with Corona’s unconditional waiver, Enrile said the impeachment court decided to note the submission without acting on it because the court is “a hearer of fact, not a producer of evidence.”

The message seems to be that the court will decide on the basis of evidence, submitted to the court.

But it seems clear that Corona’s last testimony served to  have crystallized the final issues upon which the senator-judges will vote either to convict or acquit Corona.

In appearing before the tribunal to defend himself, Corona addressed not only the 23 senator-judges but more so the grand jury of the sovereign Filipino people.

It is beyond doubt that Corona’s appearance on Tuesday and Friday was the tilting moment of this historic trial—whatever the outcome.