MANILA, Philippines - Senators, sitting as judges of the impeachment court, erred in voting to obey the Supreme Court’s order stopping the subpoena of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s dollar accounts, the lawmakers who signed the impeachment complaint said yesterday.
Collectively known as Movement 188, the lawmakers said Corona’s P31.75-million deposits would be enough to convict him on the Article 2 charge that he had falsified his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).
“This decision of the Senate (impeachment) court might clear the way to increasingly barefaced meddling by the Supreme Court, which is dominated by the Chief Justice and his allies in the trial in disregard of the exclusive constitutional power of the Senate to try and decide over all impeachment cases,” the group said.
Movement 188 saw “a wide and deep public support” for the impeachment court to ignore the SC’s TRO.
“Nonetheless, even without the dollar deposits, the prosecution has already succeeded – despite the nonstop dilatory and diversionary court tactics of the defense lawyers – in presenting a preponderance of documentary evidence and testimonies on the Chief Justice’s recurring violations of the law on the truthful, accurate and timely filing of SALNs, which are at the heart of Article 2 of the impeachment complaint against him,” the group said.
“Corona’s SALN for 2010 alone – the year of his midnight appointment as Chief Justice – is peppered with non-declaration and undervaluation of his assets that should hopefully be enough to convince senator-jurors that he is no longer morally fit to head the Supreme Court.”
Movement 188 said Corona had falsified his SALN because he declared assets and cash worth P3.5 million in 2010, or less than a third of the combined worth of P69.9 million of his properties and deposits in at least the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) and the Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI).
In his 2010 SALN, Corona declared that his assets totalled P22.9 million – P 3.5 million in cash and investments and P1 million in jewelries – but documents submitted by the registers of deeds and property developers, along with bank statements submitted by PSBank president Pascual Garcia III and BPI Ayala branch manager Leonora Dizon, showed that he actually had at least P31.75-million worth of cash and properties that year, the group added.
Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, a member of the prosecution panel, expressed surprise and dismay at the decision of the impeachment court.
“The Senate decision was wrong because now, every time Corona disagrees with the Senate it will ask for a TRO from his colleagues in the Supreme Court and derail the impeachment proceedings,” he said.
“The decision to bow to the Supreme Court does not make the Senate co-equal but actually under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court,” he added.