Why the House had to act swiftly

Despite President Aquino’s nationwide ban, logging goes on in the Muslim provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur. So with Lanao del Norte, outside the autonomous region. Two intertwined political families dominate the Lanao provinces. They, along with selected henchmen-mayors, vice mayors and a retired colonel, openly operate sawmills. They equip woodsmen with chainsaws for the dirty job of denuding forests, in the process exposing lowlands to mudslides and floods. Investigators can inquire from Togolan tribesmen in Iligan City’s mountain barangays of Rongonon, Digkilaan, Dulag and Mandulog.

Army units in Lanao know who the destroyers of the forests are. If assured of full presidential backing and no political vendetta, they will move swiftly to stop logging. It is the philosophy of most armies to protect and replant decimated forests.

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Three petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court to stop the Senate trial of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona. The petitioners see wrong in his swift impeachment by 188 congressmen within hours last Dec. 12. They are asking the SC to issue a status quo ante (SQA) order, since supposedly the signatories were coerced.

The supplicants may not know it. But the potential release of such an SQA was the very reason leaders of the House of Reps sped things up.

Twice before, SQAs had prevented congressmen from exercising their power to impeach. First was in 2003, when the House plenary was blocked from impeaching then-Chief Justice Hilario Davide, as endorsed by the justice committee. The SC en banc first voted 14-0 that they held jurisdiction over six petitions, then 13-1 that the impeachment complaint was unconstitutional. Supposedly it was filed only 143 days from a previous (dismissed) one, instead of at least a one-year gap. The House leaders then grudgingly relented.

Second was in Sept. 2010, when the en banc barred impeachment proceedings against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. Purportedly the House might have violated Gutierrez’s constitutional rights in merging two separate raps. In Feb. 2011 the SC ultimately ruled to let the House proceed, prompting Gutierrez to resign to avoid public trial.

An SQA is the SC’s polite way of intervening in the actions of a co-equal branch of government. But its spokesman in 2003 explained that it had the effect of a temporary restraining order (TRO) on a lower agency or private litigant. In the Davide incident, lawyer-congressmen likened the SQA to a TRO issued by a judge — in a case where he was the accused. In Gutierrez’s, they regretted that despite the SC’s eventual go-ahead, the damage had been done of delaying constitutional House business for five months.

Fear of yet another debarring SQA made the House leaders wary on Dec. 12. They wanted no head-on with the SC. So, limited copies of the impeachment rap were distributed. The justice committee presented the text and highlights on PowerPoint. One count of culpable violation of the Constitution raised against Corona was the very SQA of Sept. 2010. One count of corruption was for refusal to account for the Judiciary Development Fund, the same rap against Davide in 2003. A few questions were entertained; the objectors agreed to raise their points at the plenary, should the signatures not reach 97, or one-third of House members, to send the complaint for trial forthwith. No gift bag of cash, no pork barrel was dangled.

Disallowed was to take out of the conference room the one copy for signature. For there was one other fear: the filing of a bogus, watered-down complaint ahead of the real one. Objectors were assured of no hard feelings if they left the room, for anyone was free to do so. To their surprise, 188 signed, nearly two-thirds of the House. It reflected the members’ trust in the House leaders.

The House secretary-general then explained the meaning of “verified complaint” as stated in the Constitution, then certified it so. The certification was transmitted to the Senate, along with the verified rap.

Still, one congressman later grumbled he was not permitted to study the rap sheet at home, so couldn’t sign; fine, said the House leaders. Another claimed he was removed from chairing a powerful committee for objecting; untrue, said the House leaders who had been discussing his replacement three weeks prior for budget obstructionism. A third, a first-termer, said he signed after overhearing rumors that objectors’ pork would be withheld; colleagues scoffed at his acting on the basis of gossip. A fourth, a party-list rep who was absent from the Dec. 12 caucus, was quoted in a news report as saying the signatories were bribed P1 million each. Foul, cried the House leaders who, despite his subsequent distancing from the offensive claim, brought up charges of unethical behavior against him.

Now it is the Senate that faces the prospect of a Supreme Court SQA. A congressman-prosecutor has urged it to ignore such order, if released, for unconstitutionality. Article XI, Accountability of Public Officials, Section 2-(6) states: “The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.” Deciding all cases includes side issues, like the matter of verified complaint, which the co-equal House already had certified as complied with.

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