MANILA, Philippines - The House prosecution panel formally invited yesterday Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to testify at the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he sees nothing wrong if Sereno volunteers to testify.
The prosecution panel, through a letter from Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares, invited Sereno to testify tomorrow on her dissenting opinion on the SC’s temporary restraining order (TRO) on the travel ban on former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last November.
The prosecution admitted that it would not be easy to compel the magistrate to appear even if her testimony is crucial in proving one of the charges against the Chief Justice.
Enrile said it is the prosecution’s call to bring to the court their witnesses, and the decision to testify is up to Sereno’s sound judgment.
Justice Sereno was President Aquino’s first appointee to the high court.
Enrile said the Senate would still want to hear the truth from Sereno even if it ruled out last Monday the issuance of subpoena against her and the withdrawal of the motion for written questionnaire filed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
“It is better if she testifies because the contents of her dissenting opinion are considered hearsay as far as the witness who took oath to testify,” Enrile said yesterday, referring to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima who testified before the impeachment court last week.
The Senate refused to be drawn into a collision course with the SC, which issued a Feb. 14 resolution preventing justices and its employees from testifying before the impeachment court.
Enrile said the Senate will treat Sereno “with deference” because she is a member of a co-equal branch of government.
On the possibility that the defense will try to impeach Sereno’s credibility as a witness, he said this cannot be exempted from the scrutiny of the defense, in the same manner that the Senate, although sitting as an impeachment court, cannot impose on the judiciary or intervene in the processes of the House of Representatives.
Although Sereno’s dissenting opinion on the TRO issued by the SC last Nov. 15 was presented by the prosecution team during the trial, Enrile noted that the Senate cannot accept the document as evidence since some information was hearsay.
“You take the thing at its face value. The defense can introduce evidence that the dissenting opinion is not true,” he said.
The prosecution is now proving Article 7 of the impeachment complaint, which accuses Corona of “partiality” in granting the TRO in favor of Arroyo and her husband, former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, on Nov. 15 last year.
Crucial testimony
The prosecution, in their letter to Sereno, urged her to testify because “we believe that your testimony will help the impeachment court in arriving at a conclusion on the issues above mentioned in relation to charges that the Chief Justice acted with partiality and bias in the issuance of the TRO in favor of former President Arroyo.”
“We hope to present you on March 1, 2012 at 2 p.m. at the Philippine Senate. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you be unavailable on the said date so we can immediately coordinate with the impeachment court on the matter,” the invitation reads.
Admitting that their request is “very difficult but important,” the prosecution assured Justice Sereno of their best effort to protect her “rights and dignity during your presentation.”
Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, House prosecution manager, said it appears that the prosecution has no option but to have Sereno testify before the impeachment court.
“All tracks lead to roadblocks. But legally, I think the testimony of Secretary De Lima has enough value and has served its purpose,” Abaya said.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said Sereno’s testimony was crucial.
“I think Sereno will have a first person account of what went on leading to the TRO. Without the subpoena, she might not appear,” Belmonte told The STAR in a text message.
Justice Sereno was on medical leave yesterday and could not be contacted for her response to the invitation.
Her senior staff lawyer Zaldy Trespeses told reporters the magistrate “has not been feeling well and did not attend the full-court session.”
He said Sereno would most likely issue a statement on her decision either today or tomorrow.
SC spokesman Midas Marquez also said the matter should best be left to Justice Sereno.
“I don’t want to preempt that situation, or think of possible violations. If and when she attends, she will have her reasons. So we will leave it to her,” he told reporters in a press conference.
But Marquez stressed that the recent SC resolution clearly stated that “judicial privilege belongs to the court, and therefore it is the court which can waive that privilege.”
“(Judicial privilege) does not belong to any justice or court official. The court can only waive if that particular issue is brought before the court,” he explained, adding that the rule covers written interrogatories because it is considered a testimony.
Asked what could happen if a court official violates the rule, he replied: “Then that court official will have to answer to the court.”
A matter of judicial privilege
Marquez also announced that the high court has rejected the subpoena issued by the impeachment court on two process servers who attempted to deliver the TRO at the Department of Justice (DOJ) when it was issued in the afternoon of Nov. 15 last year.
He invoked the same ruling of the court covering judicial privilege.
“The court is not waiving its judicial privilege on the matter so the two court employees were advised not to appear in the trial,” Marquez said.
It was alleged that the service of the SC TRO to the DOJ was attempted to be made quickly so that Arroyo and her husband could leave the country while being prosecuted for electoral sabotage.
Defense ready for Sereno
However, defense counsel Tranquil Salvador III said they are prepared for Sereno, if and when she decides to appear, and the manner by which they would cross-examine her would depend on her testimonies.
Salvador noted that Sereno can come voluntarily and speak on “matters within her personal knowledge” but cautioned her anew over the Feb. 14 SC resolution.
“It is within the right of the prosecution to invite Sereno to testify. We leave it to their sound judgment and we will face the music as she comes,” he said, reiterating that Sereno is covered by the resolution and that her view on the TRO is part of her dissenting opinion.
Judicial misconduct
But prosecution spokesman Rep. Miro Quimbo said the Feb. 14 resolution should not protect various criminal acts and even judicial misconduct.
Quimbo lamented that the ruling “cemented” already the position of the Chief Justice that nobody from the SC should testify.
He said the prosecution panel sees the Feb. 14 resolution as “a step backward in terms of transparency,” adding that they wanted Sereno and other SC employees to testify on issues prior and after the SC issued the TRO.
He also took offense on the statement of Sen. Joker Arroyo that the prosecution has the backing of President Aquino.
Sen. Arroyo made the statement in view of the statements of Rep. Neri Colmenares that they are having difficulty convincing witnesses to testify against the Chief Justice.
But Salvador argued that it is clear that the SC has set the limitations of judicial privilege with its Feb. 14 ruling.
He said the SC resolution was made to ensure that institutions are protected even during the impeachment trial.
Prosecution: We have other witnesses
Colmenares, however, said that the prosecution is not pinning much hope on the testimony of Sereno.
“We are now focused on the low-ranking Supreme Court (SC) personnel whom we want to testify on simple administrative matters,” he said in a television interview.
Colmenares said while SC justices and personnel may not be allowed to talk on confidential discussions, they should be permitted to testify on simple administrative matters like the time the Nov. 15 TRO was issued, the date and time the Arroyos complied with the TRO’s three conditions, and the date and time the DOJ was served a copy of the TRO.
“If they testify, we will be able to show that they were ordered to work beyond office hours to process compliance by the Arroyos with the TRO’s conditions, like the posting of a P2-million cash bond and to serve the TRO on the DOJ so the Arroyos could immediately leave,” he said.
The day the restraining order was issued, Arroyo and her husband went to the airport and tried to board planes for Singapore and Hong Kong, but immigration officers, on orders of Secretary De Lima, prevented them from leaving.
De Lima told the impeachment court last week that based on Sereno’s dissenting opinion on the issuance of the TRO, Corona helped the Arroyos in their attempt to leave the country and escape prosecution.
Colmenares said Corona “distorted” the result of the SC session on Nov. 15 and the subsequent meeting three days later to make it appear that the TRO was immediately effective despite failure on the part of the Arroyos to comply with at least one of its three conditions.
“For him, Mrs. Arroyo and her husband could leave the country immediately, nevermind the conditions,” he said.
In his answer to the impeachment complaint, the Chief Justice insisted that the restraining order took effect upon its issuance, and that the Arroyos had five days to comply with its conditions.
Colmenares said had the Arroyos succeeded in flying out, they would now be beyond the reach of the country’s judicial system.
P-Noy hands off Sereno
Meanwhile, President Aquino said he respects the decision of the impeachment court not to subpoena Sereno, but refused to say whether she should defy the confidentiality rule of the SC and testify voluntarily.
“If she (testifies), they will say I ordered her. If she does not attend… I think there is no correct answer to that. I hope you understand,” Aquino said at the 4th National Congress of the Coordinating Council of Private Education Associations Congress at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
But the President said he would prefer that court employees be called and allowed to testify.
“As to the Supreme Court justices, I think, (they) will be treated as a coequal and that has been the tradition and the practice. A subpoena says you have power over somebody and if you are coequal, it’s a bit difficult to summon a coequal,” he said.
Aquino said the same objective could be achieved by summoning employees and not the justices themselves.
The President said he was confident that the prosecution had established a lot of things with the evidence they have presented so far. – Marvin Sy, Jess Diaz, Paolo Romero, Aurea Calica