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Bacolod City, PhilippinesWednesday, January 25, 2012
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with Rolly Espina
OPINIONS

Palace okays
Henares testimony

Rolly Espina

Malacañang apparently poked its finger into the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona when it reportedly gave the go-signal for Internal Revenue Chief Kim Henares to release the income tax returns of Corona.

It was clear that the Palace had violated it own avowals that it was into helping the leaders of the House of Representatives in pinning down Corona when it gave the go-ahead for Henares to release Corona’s ITR.

That to a certain extent undercut the precipitate action by the Senate impeachment body to adjourn early yesterday afternoon. Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile set the resumption of the trial by 1 p.m. today, but he strictly advised the prosecution to submit by 10 a.m. today their memorandum on the issue of the evidence submitted in compliance with Article 2 of the Impeachment compliant filed by the House to the Senate.

Enrile, who had been even-handed in conducting the trial last week, seemed to have resented the effort by Rep. Niel Tupas, Jr., the head of the House Prosecution Panel, asking the Senate Trial court to grant the prosecution flexibility.

But Tupas failed to clarify what he exactly meant by “flexibility”.

The defense panel, led by retired Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas, had already submitted yesterday its memorandum on the issue of the SALN of the Chief Justice as requested by Enrile before last week’s adjournment.

Tupas first promised to submit the prosecution’s memorandum Thursday. Enrile, however, stressed that it was too long a time and could further delay the senate trial. Then he gave Tupas until today to submit their memorandum “without extension.”

In yesterday’s hearing, however, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago display her mastery of the law when she discussed the role of the Senate in the case as something between the criminal and administrative or civil trials.

She suggested that the Senate adopt the principle of just ‘preponderance of evidence as she basis for its judgment.

Normally I prefer not to lengthily focus my attention on the trial because of the profusion of technicalities and legal arguments that often get convoluted. Yesterday, I found myself glued to the TV set because of Miriam, “the lady senator from Iloilo.”

Initially, most of the senator–judges were tongue tied following Miriam’s open statement. Later, however, several stood up to help defuse Enrile’s pique when the Senate President failed to elicit from Tupas what the latter exactly meant in his appeal to the Senate President for “flexibility.”

Several times, Enrile asked Tupas what exactly did he mean by the term and how he expected the chair to go about the “flexibility.”

Enrile asked later the senator-judges to advise him on what he should do, pointing out that all he wanted to do was to give both sides in the trial the chance to get a fair ruling.

Apparently sensing Enrile’s pique, Senator Manual Villar stood up and stressed that he had never been as proud to be a member of the Senator tribunal even at times, he disagreed with the Senate President.

That, I think, must have done a lot more to mollify Enrile who offered to quit if anybody wanted to take over the position of presiding officer of the Senate tribunal.

Later, Enrile gaveled the trial court to adjourn after Senator Vicente Sotto moved for it to resume today.

Well, that’s the first day of the second week of the impeachment trial.

But Senator Santiago, however, managed to elicit from the prosecution to present the list of witnesses and the pieces of evidence they would submitted to give the tribunal a time-line to follow.

That more or less, provides the tribunal an orderly glimpse on how long the trial could drag on, or finish.

***

No reason why the Energy department should delay its action on the re-bidding of the service contracts that will pave the way for the investment in hydroelectric power plants in Negros Occidental.

Both Frank Carbon, president of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Ben Ortega, president of the Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called on the DOE to act on the service contracts on the rivers of Negros Occidental which hinder the establishment of hydro power plants, the DAILY STAR reported.

Jose Ma. Valencia, chief of staff of Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. said that they are urging Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almedras to act now on the service contracts before the province loses serious investors.

The problem with such contract, granted under the term of former DOE Secretary Angelo Reyes is that they are normally being held on to by their original contractors who have not even visited Negros Occidental.

In effect, there is suspicion that they are out only to hold on to them for purposes of bargaining for a share of future contracts.

Senator Sergio Osmeña III deserves the thanks of Negrenses if he could convince the DOE to act more decisively on these because time is running to on the province because it needs as much power as it could produce to prevent discouragement of investors the province.

In short, no need to allow greedy contractors to hold on to contracts which they never attempted to comply with or to complete. Time is running out on the province Mr. Senator.*


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