MANILA — Supreme Court (SC) Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio will handle the case and stand as ponente, or writer of the decision, on the petition filed before the SC seeking to stop the impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Crossing party lines and with 188 votes, the House of Representatives impeached Corona as the SC’s 23rd Chief Justice anchored on three grounds -- betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and culpable violation of the Constitution.
Carpio will be tasked to write the decision in the petition for certiorari, which seeks to stop the Senate Impeachment Court from proceeding with the impeachment trial against the Chief Justice.
The Senate Impeachment Court is set to convene on Jan. 16, 2012 to hear the eight articles of impeachment filed against Corona, including his alleged non-disclosure of statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) and his alleged favorable “voting trend” on a number of cases involving former President and now Pampanga (2nd District) Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Carpio was a nominee for the chief justice position in May 2010 but decided to withdraw his nomination for the chief justice position by believing that then President Arroyo was devoid of authority to appoint the successor of Chief Justice Reynato Puno because of the election ban on appointments.
However, the SC ruled that Mrs. Arroyo can appoint the chief justice post which eventually went to Corona.
The case will go to Carpio after the raffle was conducted in the SC.
Carpio got the first among the four petitions filed before the SC that sought to stop the Senate Impeachment trial.
The four separate cases filed before the SC are the cases filed by petitioners Danilo Lihaylihay, Atty. Vladimir Cabigao, former Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) president Vicente Millora and Atty. Oliver Lozano.
These four cases were raffled off to different SC justices but the lowest docket number went to Carpio.
Under the Internal Rules of the SC, different petitions anchoring on the same legal grounds shall be consolidated and the ponente will be the justice who will get the lowest docket number.
The case of Lihaylihay is the one with the lowest docket number which went to Carpio.
Once the case shall be consolidated, it will be handled by Carpio.
In the petition filed by Millora and Cabigao, they alleged that the filing of the complaint was done “in conspiracy” with President Benigno Aquino III.
Millora urged the SC to declare null and void the eight articles of impeachment.
He said that the eight articles of impeachment submitted by 188 lawmakers to the Senate last week are null and void.
Millora said that the complaint was blindly signed by the 188 members of the lower House.
He argued that the purpose of the complaint is to malign not only Corona but the whole high tribunal.
“The SC is a passive institution that can’t act on controversies unless someone invokes its jurisdiction,” Millora said as justification to his petition.
Lihaylihay, Cabigao and Lozano, through their separate petitions asked the SC to nullify the impeachment case.
They questioned the eight articles of impeachment by saying that they were transmitted “with undue haste.” (PNA)
/PTR/utb"
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