Santiago lectures lead prosecutor in impeachment trial

Monday, February 13, 2012

LEAD prosecutor Niel Tupas Jr. was subjected to an oral exam by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago in the resumption of the impeachment trial Monday.

"I give you a grade of 3, in UP, that means I pass you but I warn you," Santiago told Tupas after the latter answered several questions of the senator in a 10-minute "oral recitation".

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Santiago was a former professor at the University of the Philippines.

The senator had been absent for almost a week due to hypertension.

During the trial, Senator Santiago asked Tupas, also a lawyer, of the meaning of evidence in motion. While Tupas was consulting members of the prosecution team, Santiago chose to answer her own question.

"I will supply the answer. Evidence in motion is evidence not given inside the court. It is given outside the court…Bakit hindi mag-evidence in motion para matapos na ito?" Santiago told Tupas.

The lead prosecutor, however, was not allowed to answer a number of questions since senator-judges are only given a limited amount of time to raise queries.

Santiago also asked Tupas what is the proper benchmark for the total peso amount deposited in a bank account that would constitute evidence for betrayal of public trust.

Based on testimonies of officials of the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) and the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), Corona has close to P32 million in three peso accounts as of December 2010.

"If his SALN bears P3.5 million but his bank accounts do not tally with it, that would already constitute betrayal of public trust," Tupas said.

But Santiago stressed that the lead prosecutor was not able to identify the benchmark for betrayal of public trust in quantifiable amounts.

The senator from Iloilo also delved into the cases cited by the prosecution in arguing the exemption of impeachment of the Chief Justice from the Foreign Currency Deposit Act of the Philippines.

Santiago argued that the prosecution cannot apply the doctrine of judicial precedent on Supreme Court (SC) rulings pertaining to the Salvacion, China Banking Corporation, and Ejercito cases because these does not pertain to impeachment cases.

But Tupas said these were only cited to emphasize that the SC has exempted several cases in the law on foreign currency deposits.

The SC prevented last week the disclosure of Corona's bank accounts with the issuance of a temporary restraining order. (Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)