The 'climax' at the Senate

This will be a very exciting week at the Senate. The interplay of words and influence between the Senators, the Defense and the Prosecution teams not to forget the people at the witness stand will bring the Philippines to a halt almost like during all the Pacman fights.

The Filipinos here and abroad will be glued to the TV screens all anticipating how the Senators will show their might, their power, their ability and wisdom to resolve this impeachment crisis.

Last weekend we all found ourselves debating about this impeachment case among family and friends. Indeed a very healthy exercise of the mind. But one common trend still seems a mystery. Why did the defense team present Ombudsman Carpio-Morales as their witness? Was this a game of chance – Russian roulette style?

Mea Culpa! Noted, were the words of the week. The Ombudsman surely showed us that even under stress she can come out victorious. It’s tough answering Senator Miriam Defensor’s queries and keeping calm at the same time but this Ombudsman with her wit and charm and such professional ethics did it!

Now the “barbershop philosophers” are saying the only way out for the Chief Justice is the escalation of the China-Philippines territorial tussle into a military conflict – that is of course assuming that Malacañang would not give more importance to its personal war with the Chief Justice than the Scarborough shoal.

Another long shot is for a person with the same name as the Chief Justice to come up and own the dollar accounts or a Jose Pidal who will claim to have entrusted the dollars to him? Is it going to be a case of humpty dumpty having a great fall and that all the king’s horses and men could not put humpty dumpty together again? Tall order I think.

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The power point presentation of the Ombudsman last week elicited a debate on whether she has the legal capacity to use the AMLC report or not.

Within the sphere of its mandate, the Ombudsman is indeed a powerful office. No less than the fundamental law of the land empowers the Ombudsman to investigate any public official, employee, office or agency, for illegal, unjust, improper or inefficient acts or omissions. For this purpose, it may request any government agency for assistance and information necessary in the discharge of its responsibilities, and to examine, if necessary, pertinent records and documents (Section 13, Article XI, Philippine Constitution).

The Ombudsman Act re-stated these powers with further elucidation that while the Ombudsman has no disciplinary authority over the Judiciary, it has the power to investigate any serious misconduct in office allegedly committed by officials removable by impeachment (including the chief justice) for the purpose of filing a verified complaint for impeachment, if warranted. Section 8 of R.A. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public officials) further requires that public officials shall execute the necessary authority in favor of the Ombudsman to obtain from all appropriate government agencies such documents as may show their assets, liabilities and net worth.

Unless legislation will expressly limit the investigative power of the Office of the Ombudsman conferred by the Constitution and statutes, the transmittal of the AMLC report to the Ombudsman appears to have legal basis. It is also along this line that the AMLC may argue that the release of the report to the Ombudsman was not impelled by persecution or harassment but by the duty to cooperate with the Ombudsman in its investigative functions.

I would think however that the issues on the powers of the Ombudsman and the propriety of the transmittal of the report by the AMLC were only digressions in the flow of the trial. What was significant is that evidence on the dollar account of the Chief Justice found its way into the records of the impeachment trial. It will be remembered that the initial attempt of the prosecution to prove that the Chief Justice had dollar accounts was successfully thwarted because under the Foreign Currency Deposit Act (R.A. 6426), the secrecy of foreign currency deposits does not allow its examination or inquiry by any person, government official, bureau or office whether judicial or administrative or legislative, without the written permission of the depositor. In fact a restraining order was issued on any inquiry on the alleged Corona dollar deposits hence it was not touched during the presentation of evidence by the prosecution.

With the gambit of the defense in presenting the Ombudsman to prove, among others, the non-existence of the $10M dollar account, the situation changed and it has become obvious that the strategy backfired.

Could the defense object to the admission of the AMLC report as part of the testimony of the Ombudsman? It must be observed that it was not Carpio-Morales who volunteered the AMLC report as she was compelled to show it in answer to the question of the defense counsel on the basis of her statement relative to the $10 million account. The way she turned the tide against the Chief Justice, it is not an over-statement to say that she was an “avenger” for the prosecution. For a moment, she had superpowers. The lightning from the AMLC report she waved, like Thor did to his hammer Mjolnir, stunned the defense.

What earlier appeared to have come from a million-dollar gossip turned out to be anchored on an alleged Anti-Money Laundering Council report. To the minds of the senator-judges and the public, this fact must be refuted. The defense could not afford to ignore this and simply rely on technicalities because the impeachment court is a class by itself that could adopt its own rules on appreciating evidence.

They say that only the AMLC could prove or deny the authenticity of the report, but will the defense commit another blunder by picking a noose this time to hang their heads? Shall the defense wait for the prosecution to call the AMLC on rebuttal? This remains to be seen. Yet the essence of the testimony of the Ombudsman is that the Chief Justice has US dollars, which were not declared in his SALN. Even if the defense could show that there are only 5 or less accounts, not 82 as reported; even if the defense will prove that the Corona dollars could not sum up to 12 million dollars, the stubborn fact is that his dollars were not included in his SALN in violation of the law.

With all due respect, I find the argument that dollars need not be declared in the SALN absurd. Section 8 of R.A. 6713 requires a public official to declare “all other assets such as investments, cash on hand or in banks, stocks, bonds and the like”. There is nothing in the law that would even suggest the exclusion of assets in dollars, which rightly fall under cash on hand or in banks. To contend otherwise would negate the policy of R.A. 6713 and the Philippine Constitution to promote high standard of ethics in public service. To avoid public accountability, crooks would only convert their illegally amassed pesos to dollars and appear holy. Sanamagan!

Tomorrow, it will be the people, through the senator-judges, judging the Chief Magistrate of the land. Will the truth set him free or will he make his own lantern of lies? Abangan!