Prosecution sees no need to amend impeachment complaint

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

MANILA -- The prosecution panel appealed to senator-judges on Wednesday to accept the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona "for all its weaknesses" as the House of Representatives sees no need to amend it.

In a press briefing after Tuesday's impeachment trial, House Deputy Majority Leader Romero Frederico "Miro" Quimbo, spokesperson for the prosecution panel, said: "We plead to senators to accept it (complaint) for all its weaknesses. I hope they accept it as it is. We cannot amend it anymore".

Presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile on Tuesday scolded members of the prosecution panel for filing a "defective" complaint after he disallowed the testimony of a Philippine Airlines (PAL) representative.

Enrique Javier, PAL vice president for sales, was supposed to testify on the PAL platinum cards granted to the Corona couple. Recipients of the platinum cards benefit from unlimited courtesy travel on PAL and PAL Express flights on the highest class of service.

"Do you want me to order you to amend the articles of impeachment and send it back to the House?" Enrile told lead prosecutor Niel Tupas Jr.

If the prosecutors will agree to amend the articles of impeachment, it will be sent back to the House of Representatives. The complaint will again need signatures from at least one-third of House members.

The complaint was initially signed by 188 House members on December 12 last year. Those who signed the complaint included the son of the Senate President, Cagayan Representative Juan Ponce Enrile Jr.

Quoting Senator Joker Arroyo, who was sitting as one of the prosecutors in the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in 2000, Quimbo said that while the complaint is not perfect, the impeachment court should allow the prosecution to present its evidence first.

"Let me borrow what somebody said in the past, 'it's not a perfect complaint. It's not the work of a literary expert. It's not a sample of poetry but it can stand on its own to convict the President of the Philippines.' The complaint could be better. But history would show that we should be on the side of the accepting the evidence. Those are the words of Senator Joker Arroyo," Quimbo said.

"We should be allowed to present the evidence first. The senator-judges are far more intelligent in determining whether they would admit the evidence or otherwise," he added.

The prosecution insisted that testimony from the PAL representative will show why Corona violated the basic virtues of probity, integrity and independence. This was the allegation contained in Article 3 of the impeachment complaint.

House Majority Leader Neptali "Boyet" Gonzales II added that the impeachment court could have easily dismissed the complaint against the Chief Justice if it saw early on that it was defective.

"If the complaint was found to be defective from the start, they should have dismissed it already. Are we just wasting our time here?" he told reporters.

The impeachment trial has already been going on for six weeks in the Senate. (Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)