by Ducky Paredes
We have a letter from reader Marcelo L. Tecson, who signs on as “A Concerned Citizen” from San Miguel, Bulacan. This is only a short part of a longer piece on the coming Impeachment Trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona:
“Did the critics come from Planet Mars, thereby ignorant of the grave provocation that prompted the present punitive action against CGMA and CJ Corona?
“It is as though the critics of CJ Corona’s impeachment came from planet Mars and are ignorant of past events in the Philippines. They talk as if totally clueless of the need for punitive action against former President, now Congresswoman, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (hereafter referred to as PGMA or CGMA), and CJ Renato Corona, as well as oblivious to the injustice under the manipulated and vitiated RULE OF LAW—a case of TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY—under improper Supreme Court decisions that served not the ends of justice but the protection of the graft-ridden Arroyo administration.
“On the Alleged Railroading of CJ Corona’s Impeachment in the House of Representatives—the Supreme Court itself is to blame for CJ Corona’s swift impeachment in the House; it was meant to avoid a repeat of the Supreme Court’s Issuance of Status Quo Ante Order on Impeachment as was improperly done in 2010 in the case of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.
“As gathered from media reports posted on the Internet, using Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez’s case as example, slow action on impeachment in the House of Representatives could provide opportunity for delaying it through Supreme Court intervention.
“In July and August 2010, impeachment complaints were filed against Ombudsman Gutierrez before the House of Representatives. By September 6, 2010, the House justice committee found the complaints sufficient in form and substance. On September 13, 2010, Ombudsman Gutierrez filed a petition before the Supreme Court to stop the impeachment proceedings against her. On September 14, or right the following day, the Supreme Court issued a status quo ante order, which required all parties to observe the conditions prior to the proceedings. It was only on February 15, 2011 that the Supreme Court lifted its order against the impeachment proceedings.
“However, the House justice committee held off further hearings as the Supreme Court’s decision was not yet final. On February 22, the justice committee eventually decided to resume hearings even without the Court’s final decision. As expected, on February 28, Ombudsman Gutierrez filed a motion for reconsideration before the Supreme Court. On March 9, 2011, the Court denied with finality Ombudsman Gutierrez’s appeal, thereby ending at last any doubts as to the validity of her impeachment case in the House of Representatives.
“In sum, the Supreme Court’s lightning-speed status quo ante order on September 14, 2010 delayed Ombudsman Gutierrez’s impeachment by almost a half-year. What took the Court one day to stop, it took it almost half a year to lift or reverse its order for reasons that could have been readily established based on an already existing precedent.
“Therefore, the present House of Representatives cannot be blamed if they acted swiftly on CJ Corona’s impeachment, lest Arroyo-appointed Supreme Court justices strike again to protect one of their own, through issuing similar status quo ante order for CJ Corona upon his petition for it, in the same lightning-speed fashion it did when it issued the temporary restraining order (TRO) against the DOJ watch list order on CGMA’s foreign travel last November 15, 2011—without benefit of any court hearing and without verification and substantiation of her supposed urgent need for medical treatment abroad, which, in hindsight, turned out to be false.”
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Remember also that we have this constitutional constraint on impeachments: “No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.”
What happened to the impeachment complaint in 2003 against Chief Justice Hilarion Davide, Jr. that ended when the House of Representatives voted not to transmit to the Senate articles of impeachment, in deference to an earlier Supreme Court ruling.
Thus, the impeachment complaint filed against Davide over alleged anomalies in the disbursements and expenditures of the Judiciary Development Fund by former President Joseph Estrada in June 2003 was dismissed by the House Committee on Justice on October 22, 2003.
The very next day (October 23), group of congressmen filed a second impeachment complaint. This complaint was eventually endorsed by at least 1/3 of the House members, mostly from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).
The case was taken to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the second complaint was unconstitutional. Remember that the Constitution states that no “impeachment proceeding” is allowed against the same official more than once within a period of one year.
Does the dismissal of a complaint qualify as an “impeachment proceeding”? Obviously, for the SC, whatever works for them or their CJ is how they will go.
By speeding up the impeachment filing, Congress made sure that it would get to the Senate before the SC could throw roadblocks in its transmittal to the Senate.
Remember how Speaker Many Villar did it when announcing the impeachment against Erap? If that was fair then, why would the way Congress did it this time be wrong now?
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hvp 12.28.11
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