Perjury as ground for impeachment

What, another condition? Impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona is waiving the secrecy of his peso and dollar bank deposits — provided that his 188 congressmen-impeachers and at least one senator-judge do the same.

It’s absurd. Corona did it after taking advantage of the Senate impeachment court’s liberality in letting him make a three-hour opening statement. He signed a waiver while nationally televised on the witness stand, laid down his conditions, then walked out.

It shows lack of sincerity in swearing to tell the “whole truth.” That waiver is meaningless. He must really be hiding something. He thinks he can fool the people.

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What are the grounds for impeachment? The Constitution, in Article XI, Accountability of Public Officials, states:

“The President, the Vice President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.”

Atty. A. Wilhelm B. Camarista of Iloilo City e-mailed this piece as far back as a month ago on April 23, 2012. Titling it “Perjury as a Ground for Impeachment,” he said:

“The grounds for impeachment set forth by the Constitution involve either abuses of power or acts which undermine the government and the nation.

“In American Constitutional Law (Third Edition, Volume One, pages 190-191), Laurence H. Tribe wrote: ‘Although perjury often involves neither the use of official power nor a subversion of the nation or its form of government, it is strongly arguable that this offense renders a trial judge (and perhaps any judge) inherently incapable of performing his or her official duties.... Unelected, life-tenured judges, unlike officials of the political branches, are uniquely dependent upon the success of their day-to-day work on such public confidence in their integrity and impartiality, in part because of their ability to enforce their own judgments. Perceived legitimacy, the lifeblood of the judiciary, depends crucially on the public’s sense of a judge’s fairness and integrity. A perjurious judge threatens the flow of that lifeblood. Such a judge cannot credibly swear in or rule on the credibility of witnesses, condemn convicted defendants, or preside over judicial processes that are designed to reach the truth.’

“Tribe continued (p. 168): ‘There are other, less obvious, categories of misconduct that one might plausibly argue are functionally or operationally incompatible with carrying out a particular official role but not necessarily incompatible with the holding of high public office generally. For example, it would seem that a person guilty of perjury — on any subject, however personal — cannot credibly function for life as a judge, administering oaths to trial witnesses and deciding, in a manner that the parties and the public can be expected to live with, who is telling the truth and who is lying. But it is far from clear that a president who is thought to have committed perjury on income tax returns filed with the IRS, or in the judicial investigation of his sexual conduct, is similarly disabled from credibly performing his duties as the nations chief executive, responsible for the balance of his four-year term to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’

“Clearly a judge or a justice who is found lying under oath does not deserve to stay a minute longer in office.”

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Don’t mistake dramatics for a conscience. – Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

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Ever felt you’ve heard enough of certain Broadway musicales? Don’t you wish they’d tone down their CDs and old LPs of overplayed songs? Here’s your chance to get even. Watch Forbidden Broadway spoof your grandma’s favorites Westside Story and Annie, your parents’ Fiddler on the Roof and Phantom of the Opera, your wife’s Mamma Mia, your teenage kids’ Rent and Hairspray, why even your own much-loved Cats. It even parodies the Into the Woods parody.

Final showing this weekend: May 25, 26, 27; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; with 3 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday; at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati.

Written by off-Broadway smash-hitting Gerard Alessandrini, Forbidden Broadway’s Manila run is directed by Joel Trinidad, for the (appropriately named) Upstart Productions. Starring Liesl Batucan, Caisa Borromeo, OJ Mariano and Lorenz Martinez, with cameos on separate dates by Lea Salonga, Menchu Lauchengo Yulo, Aiza Seguerra, and Rachel Alejandro.

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Reader Ray Cuevas writes from Australia: “Here, no official can get away with the kind of corruption going on in our Philippines. Like:

“(1) In 1982 health minister Michael McKellar brought in a color TV from overseas and declared it as black-and-white, for lesser import tax. He was exposed to have lied in his signed declaration, and eventually forced to resign.

“(2) PM Bob Hawke went on official visit to London, where he met up with his holidaying wife and daughter. On returning home, it was found that Hawke had taken his wife’s luggage on state aircraft. His wife was not entitled to that government expense. Embarrassed, he was made to pay for the commercial cost of the shipment.

“These were uncovered due to investigative journalism, like what you do. Thank you for your book, Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government. I ordered one for myself, and will buy more as gifts to Filipinos here.”

The compilation of my selected column exposés on government scams is available at National Bookstore and Powerbooks, and soon in e-book version.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected]