Spare the media, Corona camp cries

By Jonathan de Santos
Sunday, January 29, 2012
MANILA — Members of the media should be spared from testifying before the impeachment court, lawyers of Chief Justice Renato Corona said Sunday.
“The media is not on trial here. Prove your case by doing your work in research and litigation,” defense spokesperson and lawyer Karen Jimeno said in a press statement in reaction to a request from the House prosecution panel to summon reporters and cameramen to the witness stand.
Among the members of the media the prosecution wants subpoenaed are Raissa Robles (South China Morning Post), Marites Vitug (Rappler), Ina Reformina and Zen Hernandez and their respective cameramen (ABS-CBN), Lia Manalac and her cameraman (GMA Network Inc.), Marlon Ramos and Donna Pazzibugan (Philippine Daily Inquirer), and Mark Meruenas (GMA News Online).
Vitug already rejected the prosecution’s request. Robles said on her website that she has written the panel “to further inquire what specific data or fact (they) want from me.” She said she only found out about being asked to testify through a press release.
“The prosecution has pierced the veil of confidentiality with the ITR (income tax return), let us not drag the media and place it on the witness stand,” Jimeno said.
She was referring to spokesmen for the prosecution discussing Corona’s income, tax documents, and asset declarations in public.
Last week, senators made clear that documents marked for evidence have no bearing until accepted by the court as evidence.
Senator Joker Arroyo said Corona’s tax documents are confidential until they are officially accepted as evidence.
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, meanwhile, said in a radio interview that the court cannot compel the media to reveal their sources.
The defense also objected to a plan to summon Supreme Court justices to the trial. The prosecution intends to use its testimonies to prove Corona’s alleged failure to meet the constitutional requirement of “competence, integrity, probity and independence.”
SC Associate Justices Jose Perez, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Jose Mendoza, Ma. Lourdes Sereno, Bienvenido Reyes, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Mariano del Castillo, Antonio Carpio, Presbitero Velasco Jr. and Arturo Brion were on the list that the House submitted to the Senate on Friday.
“Is the prosecution saying they need the other justices to rat against the Chief Justice and against each other on how they voted on a particular case?” Jimeno said.
The prosecution panel will also present witnesses from the Immigration bureau and Philippine Airlines to try to prove that Corona and his wife were given treatment by the airline while it had a case pending at the Supreme Court.
Among the allegations in Article III of the impeachment complaint against Corona is his “lack of ethical principles and his disdain for fairness which has eroded the faith of the people in the Judiciary.”
The prosecution has cited the court’s turnaround on the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (Fasap) v. Philippine Airlines Inc. case, where a judgment in favor of the employees’ union was overturned “on a mere letter from Philippine Airlines’ counsel Attorney Estelito Mendoza.”
The prosecution intends to present unnamed Bureau of Immigrations representative and another from Philippine Airlines to attest to the travel records of Corona and his wife.
It also plans to present testimony from “an employee of the Supreme Court who handles the official travels of the magistrates to testify on the Chief Justice’s trips via PAL and the type of airline tickets he purchased.”
In a press statement, the panel said most of these trips were booked through Prestige Travel Agency, which they said is owned by Mendoza’s family.
On Friday, the panel submitted to the Senate a list of more than 80 witnesses it plans to call to prove the eight articles of impeachment against Corona.
Prosecutors have spent the past two weeks of the trial marking and presenting evidence to prove Article II, which accuses Corona of failing to disclose his net worth.
They said Corona has properties that were not declared on his Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN). They also said that Corona could not have afforded to buy properties in Quezon City, Taguig, and Marikina on his reported income.
Corona’s lawyers plan to present the same SALNs as evidence to disprove the allegation.
The defense lawyers are also planning to present as witness an “expert” who will testify that the Chief Justice did not violate the Constitution and pertinent laws when he submitted his SALN.
Ramon Esguerra, one of Corona’s counsels and spokespersons, said the “expert” whom he declined to name as of press time will disprove the claims of the House prosecutors that Corona obtained properties and assets beyond his means.
“We will have one final meeting later today (Sunday) to finalize the list that we intend to submit tomorrow. We will present an expert who can tell the Senate that CJ Corona did not violate the Constitution and pertinent laws on SALN, and that his assets listed came from sources that are legitimate and that the values he used have legal basis,” he said.
Esguerra said the defense witness is not an employee of the Supreme Court, but an independent resource person with a reputation and credibility to protect.
The defense panel also intends to recall as its own witness Supreme Court clerk of court Enriqueta Vidal, who was earlier called to the witness stand by the prosecution.
The lawyer said Vidal’s testimony as defense witness will be relative to the submission of Corona’s SALN, as well as on the issue of disclosure to the public of the SALN of justices and judges.
He noted that when the prosecution called Vidal as its witness, it did not delve much on the resolutions and guidelines prescribed by the High Court in the submission of the justices’ SALN, apparently to mislead the public into believing that there was intent on the part of the Supreme Court to hide Corona’s true income and assets.
He said the prosecutors also failed to stress before the impeachment court that the Supreme Court en banc is hearing two petitions of the media group Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) seeking the review of the Court’s 1998 resolution subjecting to conditions the disclosure of justices and judges’ SALN, which are being submitted to the clerk of court.
“Recalling (Vidal) now is the call of the prosecution. When our turn comes (to present Vidal as witness), she will testify on the issue of disclosure and guidelines of the SC en banc that are being questioned in a majority of the articles (of impeachment). We note that she has been listed as a prosecution witness. That makes her a witness common to both sides,” Esguerra said.
In her first appearance before the impeachment court, Vidal initially refused to release Corona’s SALN, saying she is bound by the rules of the Supreme Court on the disclosure of asset statements to the public. However, she was compelled to release the SALN upon questioning by Liberal Party stalwart Senator Franklin Drilon.
Vidal also claimed that she already put in the Supreme Court’s agenda the PCIJ petitions, thus, disclosing it would be sub judice.
The SC is set to tackle again this Tuesday the SALN issue after it ordered last week the justices from other appellate courts and the various judges associations to comment on the PCIJ petitions.
On the matter of 80 witnesses to be presented by the House prosecutors, Esguerra said the defense panel is hardly daunted.
“Number alone does not amount to substance. Again, sheer number of witnesses is unassuring of conviction. We cannot equate a hundred and even truthful witnesses to relevance, materiality, connection or admissibility,” he said.
He also expressed hope that among the 188 congressmen who signed the complaint or at least among the eight House prosecutors, there should be one who will take the stand and claim to have personal knowledge of the facts.
For his part, defense lawyer Tranquil Salvador said the list of witnesses for the defense may be lean but he assured that their testimonies will be substantial on the case.
“We are to decide based on importance, relevancy and quality of witnesses to be presented, meaning, they should only testify on matters which have a direct relation to the fact in issue. We do not want to overburden the impeachment court with unnecessary witnesses who will only prolong the trial,” he said.
On Monday, employees of the Supreme Court will once again hold a protest action amid what they called attacks of a “de facto dictator” and “surrogates of evil.”
But rather than a “Black Monday” activity, members of the Solidarity 4 Sovereignty and the SC Employees Association (SCEA) this time called on employees to wear red to signify their anger at detractors of their leader, Corona.
The groups would again hold Novena masses at 4:30 p.m. and would again run for nine days.
“We chose red to show that we are extra-vigilant and fully supportive of our chief magistrate who is facing an impeachment trial at the Senate. The color symbolizes courage and bravery to continue the fight for judicial independence,” said Jojo Guerrero, president of SCEA.
Guerrero assured that their work would not be halted or affected by their action. This, he said, was precisely why they opted to schedule their activities in the afternoon after office hours.
There are about 3,000 SCEA members in the Supreme Court, while there are over 27,000 court employees all over the country.

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