Impeachment twins?

“The future is only the past again --- but entered through another gate.” Is this true? Perhaps, one way to check is to by comparison.

How? Take the just-starting impeachment against Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona. Stack that against the aborted trial of President Joseph Estrada in 2001

Both began in the Lower House, as required by the Constitution. Both barreled along similar and controversy-ridden express tracks.

In Erap’s case, then Speaker Manuel Villar mumbled the opening prayer, skipped the roll call, raced through a resolution, banged his gavel --- to send the impeachment case to the Senate for trial. Voila!.

This bypassed a full plenary vote. Within hours, Estrada allies ousted Villar. They installed Camarines Sur representative Arnulfo Fuentebella, a pliant Erap ally as Speaker. But impeachment curtains went up in the Senate.

A weekend caucus, mid December, saw 188 congressmen sign an eight-point impeachment document against Corona. Without going through plenary debates, the Lower House shuffled it off to the Senate for trial.

Those who signed were more than the one-third of the 285 House members, a requirement under the Constitution to impeach, said the justice committee which initiated the process.

“We can not have a nation run by a thief,” then Rep. Joker Arroyo told Justice Hilario Davide and senator-judges when impeachment of Erap started Dec. 7, 2000. Arroyo read the 13th Philippine President’s oath of office.

“Except for his name, he violated every word of his oath,” Arroyo said. “That is why the House has impeached him. That is why the Senate must convict him.”

He then outlined the charges: from skimming P130 million tobacco excise taxes, .misdeclaring his 1998 and 1998 Statement of Assets and Liabilities to constructing houses for various mistresses

“In the name of God, go”, Rep Neil Tupas told Chief Justice Corona in the opening statement of the prosecution. This is a quote from Oliver Cromwell’s 1653 speech dismissing England ’s Long Parliament.

The prosecution would prove it’s charges against Corona from sleaze to violations of the Constitution. “It is high time for us to put an end to your sitting in that place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice…Depart I say, and let us have done with you.”

Today, senator-judges sift through land titles of Corona, whose 2002 Statement of SALN, pegged net worth was P14 million. Do titles presented, by the Taguig Registrar of Deeds, show he is worth far more than declared value of various condos?.

Among these are: P3 million La Vista in Quezon City bought for P16 million; P6.8 million Bellagio penthouse acquired for P14.5 million; P2.3 million Ridge condo purchased for P9 million; the P921,000 Burgundy condo taken at P2.5 million; and P1.2 million Columns condominium in Makati purchased for P3.5 million

“We want to know if the children have legitimate sources of income,” prosecutors said. “The La Vista property was sold to his daughter at P18 million, then another property in Kalayan Avenue in 2009 at P15 million and another in Cubao in 2003 at P10.5 million.”

Hit the rewind button for December 2000. Estrada lawyers parried inspection, by the impeachment court, of various houses. Five were traced to Erap’s family children and mistresses..

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism pinpointed them as: (a ) P58.9 million house at 771 Harvard Street in Mandaulyong; ( b ) P34.2 million house at 769-800, also in Wack Wack; ( c ) P12.3 million house at 551 Wack-Wack Road; (d) P9.3 million house at 973-975 Stanford Road, and (d) P32.8 million Boarcay Mansion at 100 Eleventh St, in Quezon City – abandoned in the aftermath of People Power II.

With assets of P8 million, and liabilities of P5.9 million, Estrada had a net worth of P2.1 million in 1987, UP School of Economic chair Solita Monsod recalled. “Where did (he) get the wherewithal to bankroll 63 corporations, 14 of which declared assets of 606.8 million in the last two years?”

The Corona trial has barely began. And we know that Estrada’s trial ended abruptly when People Power II overruled, a majority of 11-senator judges, who voted to seal the “Jose Velarde” envelop.

In our checkered history, is there anything to a people’s revolt, sweeping away a degraded impeachment trial that left 11 biased judges to twist in the wind?.

For the ‘Craven 11” this was a public horsewhipping. By lashing these official delinquents, enraged citizens signaled they’ve had it with abuse. There is also much that today’s judges can learn from this well-deserved keel-hauling of senatorial crooks.

Sworn to render impartial justice, the “Craven 11” acted a stalking horses for a corrupted presidency. In his first – and last – inaugural speech, Estrada correctly such low life as “rouges in judicial robes.

“A man can not serve two masters”is the lesson of 11 rogues twisting in the post-Edsa 2 wind. Either you serve truth and spurn a sleaze official. Or you betray the people.

The words of a dying Cardinal Wolsey, stripped of power by Henry VIII for failing to secure a divorce for the king, is timely: “Had I served my God with half the zeal/ I served my king, he would not in mine age/ Have left me naked to mine enemies.”*

( Email: juan_mercado77@yahoo.com )

back to top