Prosecution set to present dozens of other witnesses

THIRTEEN justices of the Supreme Court will be asked to testify against their own boss, Chief Justice Renato Corona, among nearly 100 others who were listed as witnesses by the prosecution panel in the ongoing Senate impeachment trial of the country’s top magistrate.
The prosecution has listed 13 of the 15 justices of the High Tribunal in compliance with the January 24 order of the impeachment court requiring them to submit a list of witnesses and documentary evidence to be presented in the course of the trial in addition to those previously presented.

These magistrates are Associate Justices Jose Perez, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Jose Mendoza, Ma. Lourdes Sereno, Bienvenido Reyes, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Mariano del Castillo, Antonio Carpio, Presbiterio Velasco Jr. and Arturo Brion.

Perez, Peralta, Bersamin, Mendoza, Sereno, Reyes, Abad, Villarama and Perlas-Bernabe will be witnesses for Article 3 or committing culpable violation of the Constitution/betrayal of public trust for flip-flopping decisions of the High Court in final and executory cases.

Del Castillo, Carpio, Velasco Jr. and Brion will be witnesses for Article 7, or betrayal of public trust for issuing a Temporary Restraining Order on Watch List Orders on former President and now Rep. Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga province and her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo.

Of the 13 Supreme Court Justices, only Sereno is the appointee of President Benigno Aquino 3rd.

The rest are all appointees of Mrs. Arroyo, including Corona.

More liberal
Despite such huge number of witnesses, the House prosecution panel believes that they would have material time to present all of them, considering that they have asked the Senate impeachment court to be more liberal in the presentation of evidence.

“We have a long way to go, that is why we are asking the presiding officer to be liberal in the presentation of evidence, and some have been sensitive to it,” House prosecution panel spokesman and Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara of Aurora province said during a press conference, referring to the position of Sen. Miriam Santiago, who wants all the evidence unearthed.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile is the presiding officer of the Senate impeachment court.

Rep. Romero Quimbo of Marikina City (Metro Manila), the lead spokesman for the prosecution, said that they expected the trial’s pace to speed up in the coming days since initial disputes on various issues such as adoption of rulings on criminal proceedings and determination of defectiveness or soundness of a complaint have been resolved.

“This [trial] has dragged because of these contentions, but these have been resolved. These would make things faster. We can present our case in a shorter time,” Quimbo told the same press briefing, saying that they expect to field five or six witnesses a day.

He, however, clarified that asking the Senate impeachment court to be liberal in terms of allowing the prosecution panel to present evidence does not mean that they want to deny Corona due process or that they admit that their case is weak.

Under the rules, the documentary evidence that has been presented by the prosecution—Corona’s statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, and titles and income-tax returns—are yet to be officially included in the pieces of evidence against the Chief Justice because the formal offer of evidence is yet to happen.

Hostile witness
Meanwhile, Justice Velasco is expected to serve as a hostile witness, along with Supreme Court administrator and spokesman Midas Marquez.

Velasco will testify “that the hurried issuance of the TRO against the DOJ [Department of Justice] on 15 November 2011 by respondent Corona in order to give the Arroyos an opportunity to escape prosecution and to frustrate the ends of justice is a tyrannical abuse of power, an act of favoritism and an inexcusably negligent act amounting to a betrayal of public trust.”

Sereno and Velasco will serve as witnesses during the presentation of Article 7 of the impeachment complaint against the Chief Justice.

There are eight Articles of Impeachment.

Rep. Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna party-list said that 18 witnesses would be summoned to testify on Article 7, which claims that Corona allegedly became impartial on then-President Arroyo and her husband allegedly in order to give them the opportunity to escape, thus committing betrayal of public trust.

Sereno is 16th on the list while Velasco is 18th.

Sereno, Colmenares said, will testify, among others, on the “hurried issuance of the TRO against the DOJ on 15 November 2011 by respondent Corona in order to give the Arroyos an opportunity to escape prosecution and to frustrate the ends of justice is a tyrannical abuse of power, an act of favoritism and an inexcusably negligent act amounting to a betrayal of public trust.”

The two would be testifying that there was also suppression in the “promulgation of the dissenting opinion of Justice Sereno which was submitted on 2 December 2011 but was promulgated only on 13 December 2011.”

More witnesses
Other witnesses include blogger Raissa Robles and journalists Criselda Yabes and Marites Vitug who will testify, among others, on the close personal relationship between the embattled Chief Justice and the former president.

ABS-CBN News correspondent Ina Reformina and another unidentified media man will be asked to testify on the circumstances behind the issuance of the TRO.

Also included in the list of possible witnesses are Justice Secretary Leila de Lima; Dr. Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, principal physician of Mrs. Arroyo; her surgeon, Dr. Mario Ver; the High Tribunal’s Clerk of Court, Enriqueta Vidal; and Chief Judicial Officer, Araceli Bayuga.