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'We went through the process'
Beyond expressing confidence in achieving a conviction, the President defended the very process and steps that had been taken to take Corona this far in the impeachment trial.
He dismissed criticism that his and his allies' dogged campaign to impeach the Chief Justice betrayed a “dictatorial” streak in him. The President stressed that he had patiently gone through every legal step in the country's democratic processes in order to get this far with Corona, and for that matter, in the government's attempt to prosecute former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Retraces steps
He retraced the meticulous steps taken by government in both the cases of Corona, whose lawyers will present evidence on March 12 at the impeachment court; and of Mrs. Arroyo, who is under “hospital arrest” at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center on a charge of electoral sabotage in connection with the alleged 2007 poll fraud.
Early on in his term, Mr. Aquino recalled he issued Memorandum Circular No. 1 establishing a Truth Commission, which the Corona-led Supreme Court jettisoned for being unconstitutional.
“We went through a process. We tried to study the problem, di ba,formally, through the truth commission and see how….parang [it seemed] the underlying question was how this Constitution, with its supposed checks and balances, was either used, abused, not used---that allowed all of the excesses in the past. They said hindi puede. Napaka specific daw. Parang walang equal protection clause,” Mr. Aquino recalled, referring to the legal opinion that the proposed Truth Commission was too focused specifically on just one administration[Arroyo] as to violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
“So that [Memorandum Circular Number 1 creating the Truth Commission] got thrown out. So we went through another process. . . .So [the] process is look for the evidence. Evidence, witnesses, build up the case, go through the preliminary investigation phase, file the necessary action in court. And we got criticized for taking too long to bring these charges on. Before [they said] we’re taking too long, now I’m dictatorial,” Mr. Aquino said, reacting to observations that while touting democracy he has short-circuited due process in the Arroyo and Corona cases.
Turning pensive, his hand reaching out once more for the Constitution on a side table, he asked, “kelan ba tayo nagkaroon ng [when did we have a] dictatorship? Martial law,” and then recalled: “I do not know if I am mistaken but if memory serves me right, everybody in the judiciary was asked to tender their resignation, right? [And then it was] effective upon acceptance.”
Furthermore, he said, there were many Supreme Court decisions that ruled a critical issue raised to the SC as “a political question, we will not interfere.”
That, he stressed, is how a dictatorship does its thing with the court. Not this administration.
Then he tossed back the question to InterAksyon.com. “But what would you do in my position?” And he cited the Corona-led court’s temporary restraining order on the Justice Department’s watch list order on the Arroyos as the “trigger” that solidified the resolve to impeach Corona.
When the MC No. 1 on the Truth Commission was thrown out, he said, the government reviewed the cases of alleged wrongdoing under Mrs. Arroyo, and the 2004 election fraud was reviewed by a joint Comelec-Department of Justice panel that subsequently recommended the filing of the charges against the former president, now a representative of the second district of Pampanga.
“In this case [there was a case filed of] electoral fraud at the DOJ. What was the process? Preliminary investigation, there’s an affidavit of complaint, then a counteraffidavit to refute the complaint.”
The panel of prosecutors was to weigh the affidavit and counteraffidavit, but the latter was never filed. “We have processes, there are deadlines.”
It was apparent, Mr. Aquino said, in every step taken by the camp of Rep. Arroyo and of Chief Justice Corona that she would be given the leeway to leave the country, given what Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had earlier described as the dubious details of her travel plans: she was supposedly very ill and in urgent need of medical treatment not available in the country, yet had a five-country itinerary that would have taxed her body and included mostly countries where the Philippines has no extradition treaty.
The government lawyers also had an eye toward the prescription period for the “serial poll fraud,” alluding to the 2007 case.
Take note, Aquino said, that Mrs. Arroyo had even gone scot-free from the allegations she cheated Fernando Poe Jr. in the 2004 presidential elections. Poe died six months later, the complaint dying with him.
It was clear, Mr. Aquino recalled, that Mrs. Arroyo, with the obvious help of her former chief aide Corona, would use every possible recourse in the legal process to derail the cases against her.
The most obvious of these was Chief Justice Corona’s alleged maneuvers to grant Arroyo the temporary restraining order she sought against the watch-list order issued by the DOJ to prevent her travel abroad.
“Those who are not giving justice to the country [are] who we are up against. And that just doesn’t mean Chief Justice Corona,” Aquino said.
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