PHNO-OPINION: FRANCISCO TATAD: THE PROSECUTION'S PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED

FRANCISCO TATAD: THE PROSECUTION'S PRAYERS ARE
ANSWERED

MANILA, MAY 15, 2012 (MANILA STANDARD) By
Francisco S. Tatad (photo) - After an extended break of several weeks, Chief
Justice Renato Corona's Senate impeachment trial is back on track, and
expectations are high it would be over within days. But just how it would end is
anybody's guess.
Corona's reported decision to testify in his own trial was promptly labeled
by some as a victory for the prosecution and the senator-judges, who had been
agitating for it. But it could yet play as Corona's best card in trying to
offset or at least balance the growing administration pressure on the judges.

Corona's testimony is expected to be the piece de resistance of this long
trial. It could make or break his defense. But the testimonies of several
hostile witnesses, whom the defense panel had asked to be summoned to the stand
before Corona testifies, could prove most revealing and even render Corona's own
testimony anti-climactic.
These include Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales who has apparently decided to
open a separate forum for the same charges being tried in the Senate, and some
party-list politicians who are hoping to be catapulted to the Senate by their
intervention in the Corona case.
On April 20, 2012, during the congressional and trial recess, Carpio Morales
asked Corona in a formal letter to respond "within 72 hours" to allegations
filed with her office, that he had "amassed real and personal properties in
significant amounts but did not correctly report the same in (his) Statements of
Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (collectively, the SALNs)."
This was the same charge contained in Article II of the Articles of
Impeachment, for which Corona is now being tried. It was filed with the
Ombudsman on Feb. 17, 2012, one month after Corona's impeachment trial had
begun.
In her letter to Corona, Carpio Morales said: "While you may only be removed
from office through impeachment proceedings, this Office has, as reflected
earlier, the power and duty to investigate you for any serious misconduct in
office for the purpose of filing a verified complaint for impeachment, if
warranted. It was on this account that this Office conducted an initial
evaluation on the complaints.
"Furthermore, we received information that there are several bank accounts in
PSBank and several other banks in your name, including those denominated in US
dollars the aggregate value of which amounts to at least US $10,000,000.00.
"After the initial action taken, this Office finds that there is reasonable
ground to proceed further with the conduct of an inquiry vis-à-vis charges that
you, during your incumbency as a public officer, accumulated wealth that is
purportedly grossly disproportionate to your salary and other lawful income."

Several things appear to be wrong here.
The Office of the Ombudsman has many duties and responsibilities, all
intended to help keep public office as a public trust. But investigating an
impeachable officer—which could mean the President, the Vice President, a member
of the Supreme Court or of a Constitutional Commission, or the Ombudsman himself
or herself, "for the purpose of filing a verified complaint for impeachment, if
warranted"—after he/she has been impeached by the House of Representatives, and
while he or she is being tried by the Senate is clearly not one of them.
Yet this is exactly what Carpio Morales did. She gave due course to charges
filed by a number of complainants against Corona two months after he had been
impeached by the House, and one month after the Senate began trying the same
charges she has decided to investigate. Two months later, while Congress and the
impeachment trial were on recess, she came out with her "findings" and ordered
Corona to respond to them "within 72 hours"—on the very same charges.
While certain parties engage in "forum shopping" in certain cases, in this
instance Carpio Morales provided a special forum for the same charges that were
already being heard in the Senate. She took them up as energetically as the
Supreme Court has refrained from acting on any of the petitions questioning the
validity of the Articles of Impeachment. So where the high court has denied
Corona every constitutional relief, Carpio Morales has enlarged Corona's burden
by giving due course to issues already covered by the Senate trial or completely
excluded.
Assuming the Ombudsman has the right or duty to investigate any impeachable
officer, including the President, "for the purpose of filing an impeachment
complaint, if warranted," that still cannot justify two simultaneous
proceedings—one in the Senate impeachment court and another in the Office of the
Ombudsman—arising from the same charges against the same respondent. The
Constitution provides, and the Supreme Court has eloquently reaffirmed it, that
no impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more
than once within a period of one year.
As a former justice of the Supreme Court, Carpio Morales cannot be ignorant
of the law. But there seems to be no rational explanation for her irrational
act, except perhaps what Senator Joker Arroyo's earlier told the Senate
impeachment court, that the administration has decided to throw in everything,
including the kitchen sink, to get rid of this "meddlesome" chief justice.
However, Corona's decision to testify has provided the defense the
opportunity to ask Carpio Morales her peculiar and revolutionary understanding
of the Ombudsman's rights and duties, and to see if the Constitution has not
been breached. She could also enlighten the Court and the general public on her
"information" that Corona has something like $10,000,000 in the banks.
Although she mentions that amount without any detail or documentation in her
letter to Corona, the Franken media have turned it into one of their unexamined
and unsubstantiated hallowed "truths."
One female officer of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines thinks it is "bad
law, although good theater" to have to discuss in court this alleged $10,000,000
which was never raised by the prosecution at all, and which surfaced from the
Ombudsman long after the prosecution had rested its case. Indeed, it would not
be fair to ask Corona to explain it, before Carpio Morales and her political
informers shall have explained it first, under oath.
So by all means, let them do it. That should give the informers a chance to
either substantiate their charge or perjure themselves, and Carpio Morales a
chance to look either self-righteous and seraphic or diminished and defeated.


Mr. Tatad is a former senator of the republic.

(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/May/14)


Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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