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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Drilon’s loyalty

Lowdown
Drilon’s loyalty
By Jojo A. Robles

Some senators are just more loyal to Malacañang—and more open about their loyalty—than others. Take Senator Franklin Drilon. Please.

Drilon doesn’t mind being accused of moonlighting for the prosecution, aside from being a judge of the Senate impeachment court. But at least he doesn’t pretend to be an impartial judge, unlike some other equally partisan senators who must decide the fate of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Lead defense counsel Serafin Cuevas doesn’t even hide his displeasure anymore about Drilon wearing the robes of a senator-judge while doing everything he can to help the prosecution win its case. And Drilon, apart from turning away from Cuevas with a dismissive smirk, doesn’t even protest.

Last Monday, Cuevas asked presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile to stop a witness from testifying because neither the prosecutor nor the defense had asked her to appear. “Is she a witness of Senator Drilon?” Cuevas, his voice dripping with sarcasm, said.

Yesterday, when Drilon insisted on recalling a witness who had already been grilled by the lawyers on both sides, Cuevas slammed Drilon again. Some senators are not merely acting as judges, the defense lawyer said, “they are practically appearing to us as private prosecutors!”

Once more, Drilon simply smirked and turned away. No loud protests, not even a word about offended honor.

Contrast Drilon’s virtual acceptance of his role as prosecutor-judge, for example, with the loud protestations of senators who think their integrity and impartiality are being questioned. To name just two at random, both Jinggoy Estrada and Alan Peter Cayetano immediately attack anyone who even implies that they are favoring one side, whether in or out the court.

The equanimity of Drilon in the face of accusations of partiality makes Cuevas’ job a little easier. At least Cuevas no longer has to treat Drilon as a judge that he has to convince to acquit Corona, Drilon’s vote at this early stage being already in the administration’s bag.

The rest of us can follow Cuevas’ lead and consider Drilon a very powerful member of the prosecution, whose demands for summonses to witnesses and whose leading questions cannot be objected to.

Of course, Drilon was also once famously loyal to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. And we all know how that turned out.

* * *

The education of the prosecution, meanwhile, continues via the sharp but very learned tongue of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago. And if Santiago remains healthy enough to attend more hearings, lead prosecutor Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., her favorite (if failing) student, and the rest of his panel may just learn how to be better lawyers.

I must admit that every time Santiago takes to the podium, my legal education as a journalist continues, as well. Even my perfectly well-trained lawyer-friends appreciate how Santiago explains both the fundamental principles and the finer points of the law, legal precedents and their application and courtroom practice and strategy.

Yesterday, Santiago explained (complete with citations of the relevant Supreme Court decisions) why the prosecution panel must not be allowed to go unpunished for making the Senate issue subpoenas to witnesses based on spurious documents. It doesn’t matter, according to Santiago, if the prosecution acted in good faith when it bamboozled the Senate by using fake bank documents obtained under suspicious circumstances from PSBank.

It’s just not done, Santiago observed. And lawyers who use such documents because they were too eager to convict, too lazy to verify or too stupid to know the difference between the real and the forged will have to be punished.

This prosecution panel, after all, speed-read its own impeachment complaint, vowed to produce 45 imaginary properties and then urged the Senate to subpoena bank officials on the basis of documents handed over by a “small lady” whom no one outside of one congressman can claim to exist.

But Santiago is merely pointing out the legal basis for the prosecution’s “fatal errors,” as Enrile described them. More and more ordinary people are now convinced that the prosecution is not necessarily going to follow the law to achieve their goal of convicting Corona.

And that holds true for everyone, from lawyers to anyone else who’s never even seen the inside of a courtroom—to say nothing of one presided over by the learned Miriam.

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