House to hire private lawyers to help prosecute Corona

MANILA, Philippines - Private lawyers will be hired to help prosecute Chief Justice Renato Corona before the Senate impeachment court.

Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas, head of the 11-member House of Representatives prosecution panel, said the House leadership has provided a P5-million budget to defray their expenses.

“From the way I understand matters, members of the prosecution would need the services of private lawyers who will assist us,” he said. “We will have enough legal support.”

Isabela Rep. Giorgidi Aggabao, one of the prosecutors, said he has gone over the Articles of Impeachment and thought the panel has a good case.

“From the viewpoint of evidence we have the evidence, from the viewpoint of substance they’re (charges) very substantive,” he said. Of course, like any other case, this will be very difficult, I mean there’s no case that’s easy.

“The only problem that we see here is that we have a very short time (to prepare). This is a complex case and trial starts in January, we have to interview witness and study the documentary evidence.”

Members of the panel are veteran lawyers and “understand the rudiments of procedure,” Aggabao said.

The panel held its first organizational meeting at the Andaya Hall at the House of Representatives yesterday.

It also created a secretariat to manage its administrative affairs.

“We’ll also discuss communications so we can communicate effectively to the public. We will ask individual members of the panel to signify which Articles of Impeachment they want to handle,” Tupas said.

LCP to file Impeachment vs justices

The League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) will file an impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona and all Arroyo-appointed justices of the Supreme Court (SC) early next year.

LCP president Oscar Rodriguez said he is prepared to testify before the Senate impeachment court “as a matter of duty to call the attention of the people on the SC’s ‘serious lapses’ on the cityhood issue.”

“We were just waiting for the effectivity of the release of IRA (Internal Revenue Allotments) next year before filing impeachment cases against them,” he said.

Rodriguez said Corona’s impeachment has overtaken the LCP’s plan to file the impeachment cases.

He would support the impeachment trial at the Senate, but would not drag former President Arroyo into the issue, he added.

Rodriquez said the SC’s final decision to grant cityhood status to 16 municipalities will reduce the IRA shares of the old LCP members by P8 billion. His city’s IRA alone would be shaved of some P48 million, he added.

Rodriguez said the computation for IRA shares is done every three years and the last one, done in 2009 when national income was low, would take effect in 2012 with the 16 new cities partaking of the allocation.

“Aggravating the situation is the fact that in 2009, national income was low so that the computation for IRA shares was also reduced by five percent,” he said.

Rodriguez said the SC’s decision to allow the 16 municipalities to become cities was “a betrayal of public trust,” especially in their “flip-flopping” decisions.

“Altogether, we had filed nine motions for reconsideration on the case,” he said.

“The faith of the nation in the judicial system is at stake. Now, there’s a question on the immutability of decisions of the high court.”

The LCP has been critical of the SC’s “flip-flopping” decisions on the cityhood of 16 municipalities.

Last July, the SC ordered its clerk of court to issue an entry of judgment on the cityhood case of 16 municipalities, sealing with finality the constitutionality of 16 Cityhood Laws.

In November 2008, the SC declared that the 16 towns were not exempted from the new P100-million income requirement, and could not be considered cities.

It affirmed this decision in May 2009 with a vote of 6-5.

In December 2009, however, the SC reversed itself with a vote of 6-4, saying the towns were exempted from the new income requirement.

The LCP filed a motion for reconsideration, which the SC granted on Aug. 24, 2010, and reinstated its original decision that the towns should remain municipalities.

In February 2011, the SC en banc again reversed its ruling by declaring the validity of the 16 towns as cities, once more prompting the LCP to file last March 8 another motion for reconsideration on the issue. – With Ding Cervantes, Jess Diaz, Sandy Araneta