Honeyman: Impeachment

Monday, January 16, 2012

TODAY, the Senate begins hearing evidence relating to the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona. There are pitfalls for the prosecution. The most obvious is that Tupas et al must avoid the "Starr Syndrome" named after Kenneth Starr who unsuccessfully prosecuted US President Bill Clinton at the impeachment trial of 1999. Starr showed himself to be petty and vindictive. This may have swayed the US Senate into acquitting Clinton despite the production of copious quantities of irrefutable DNA evidence.

Some Senators have, understandably, reacted negatively to pre-trial publicity which sanctimoniously critiques the Coronas’ substantial assets, acquired over several decades.

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We are aware of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights (Article III). Sec 17 states:

‘No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.’

Its seems to me that the use of the Coronas’ Statement of Assets, Liabilities - and in this unfortunate pre K-12 epoch where subtraction is an esoteric concept - Net Worth (SALN), to identify possible malfeasance is close to being unconstitutional.

We were pleased recently when the House of Representatives knocked back BIR Commissioner Kim Henares who wanted all of us all to submit an annual SALN.

It is reasonable that the Coronas who, by all accounts are hard-working professionals, should, over the years, seek less frugal habitats than the ones they occupied in 1992.

The Corona family, predictably, feels hurt by the unkind accusations that have been hurled at them due to their demonstrably successful wealth-creation programs. But the law in the Philippines, and many other countries, is reluctant to turn a blind eye to unexplained wealth.

Nevertheless, we hope that in the impeachment proceedings, the prosecution does not spend too much time banging on about Taguig, Makati, Marikina, and Quezon City penthouses and car-parking spaces. We are much more interested in evidence relating to alleged Supreme Court (SC) dysfunctionality.

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The decision facing Senate is simply whether Dr Corona will be given continued employment or a pink slip. Therefore the focus of the impeachment proceedings should be to determine if Corona has discharged his responsibilities with competence, fairness and diligence, with particular reference to cases mentioned in the impeachment complaint.

The first step is to develop a detailed job description, if one does not already exist, as to what are Corona’s responsibilities.

Whatever happens, we are pleased that the impeachment process is taking place. We believe that the SC is becoming increasingly smug and complacent, and that it is becoming far too aware of its authority and correspondingly offhand about its awesome responsibilities. Even if Corona is acquitted, we believe that the SC will operate more circumspectly in future.

Unfortunately, smugness and complacency, though starting from the top, permeates throughout the Judicial Branch. We hope that the impeachment proceedings will cause a change in perspective and a reappraisal of the Judicial Branch’s workings.

The Senate has the sole authority to decide the level of performance which Corona should reach in order to avoid the stricture ‘betrayal of public trust’ as stated in Article XI Sec 2 of the Constitution.

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Corruption

PNoy was elected on the basis that he would reduce corruption. He also drew attention, in the vernacular, to the causal relationship between corruption and poverty.

But results have been disappointing. The Philippines is currently 129th in Transparency International’s (TI) corruption league table. This shows only a slight improvement over the previous year’s ranking of 134th. We should, however, look at TI’s methodology. It examines corruption perceptions shown in surveys taken over the previous two years. For example, the current result, announced in December 2011 was based on the results of around a dozen surveys undertaken between November
2009 and September 2011. Therefore, PNoy’s administration is not exclusively responsible for our current ranking.

Ultimately, Corona’s impeachment is largely about corruption. Is he, and the Judicial Branch over which he presides, a beacon of probity in a country which is deemed to be, by international standards, highly corrupt? Or is the Judicial Branch a significant contributor to our lowly position in the corruption league table? We believe the latter. If so, is Corona part of the problem or is he trying manfully to create a corrupt-free Judicial Branch? We believe he is part of the problem.

It is up to those prosecuting Corona to show that he is, indeed, part of the problem, and that public trust has been betrayed.

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A judicial branch case study

We gave permission for substantial sum to be debited from our BDO bank account so as to purchase an advertised life insurance policy.

Several weeks later we had received nothing: no receipt and no policy. We had a meeting with junior management representatives of the bank and Philamlife, then the bank’s Bankassurance partner.
To our surprise, the Philamlife rep was disdainful. ‘We’re very busy’ he said. No indication was given as to when or if the policy would he issued. There was no indication, therefore, that progress would ever
be made. We then established that we could not reverse the transaction (so that we could buy an insurance policy from a company that actually issues policies) without incurring a huge penalty. This, surely, is unfair. The dilatory insurance company, seemingly doing nothing, was arrogantly telling us that we could not advance and could not reverse the transaction without penalty. The bank officer concurred with the insurance company rep as to the appropriateness of penalizing us if we tried to reverse the non-existent transaction. In the event, the policy was never issued and we were out-of-pocket.

Later we decided that we would seek mediation from the barangay. But before we could do so, we had to ‘blotter’ the incident with the police. The conscientious police officer who received our statement indicated that, in his opinion, the events we described constituted a prima facie case of estafa. Our solution set also included bad faith and/or gross negligence. It was assuredly one of these.
There are no other possibilities.

The barangay undertook its mediation role with great skill.

Unfortunately, Philamlife was still disdainful. Apparently, it received legal advice that it did not have to co-operate with the barangay proceedings. Consequently, no progress was made and the barangay issued us with a Certificate to File Action.

This we did but, despite very clear affidavits, the fiscal denied our recommendation for an independent audit which would establish where and when the money went, where and when the documents went and whether the documents were genuine.

To us, the fiscal’s denial that anything wrong happened when we paid good money for a policy we did not receive after months of pleading with Philamlife confirms, in the words of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, that we regard the fiscal to be either incompetent or corrupt.

The Ombudsman’s description of the pillars of the justice system is very relevant. The community, as exemplified by the barangay, as one pillar of the justice system liaised very well with us and with the second pillar of the justice system, namely the law enforcement agency-in our case the PNP. But the fiscal’s office failed. It did not operate cohesively with either the community or the law enforcement agency. We need the justice system to be properly integrated. We need a Judicial Branch to ensure that this happens. We need to be more proactive in fighting corruption.

Should Corona resign?

The SC has been damaged. When the SC speaks, we no longer uncritically accept its pronouncements. We debate. We criticize. We dispute. We reject. We fume. The SC has already lost our respect. This need not have happened. It should not have happened. It will take time to repair the SC as an independent body whose decisions we readily accept.

The SC has already been damaged. It will surely be damaged further once the evidence relating to the impeachment complaint is submitted to the Senators.

One of the articles of the impeachment complaint deals with allegations that the SC’s independence has been attacked by former president Arroyo. If evidence is presented to the Senators confirming that the independence of the SC has, indeed, been sullied, then it will be years before the SC fully regains public respect.

Should the Senators find that Corona is unfit to hold the CJ’s office, then in addition to the loss of face he incurs, the SC is further damaged. It would be years before we listen, uncritically, to its pronouncements. This would be the case whoever becomes the next CJ.

Even if Corona is allowed to keep his position, particularly if a majority of Senators believe he should go (Corona only needs eight Senators to vote in his favour), the people’s respect for the SC will
be fractured for even longer than if the SC were to become Corona-free.

Corona has a negative rating in the public opinion surveys. He is not a respected figure in the community. He may believe that he owes it to his supporters not to resign. He is mistaken. If the verdict of the Senate goes against him, many of his ‘supporters’ will disappear.

The injury to the SC’s reputation will be healed more quickly if Corona resigned now.

There is still time.

Conclusion

The Philippines is highly corrupt. PNoy is trying to ensure that country becomes less corrupt. We hope that, one day, he will have the support of the Judicial Branch in this vital endeavour. The Senate
has the authority to help. We hope it will make the right decision.