CJ’s turn

Editorial

Chief Justice Renato Corona appears to be on a media blitz, as the defense team prepares for its turn at the trial, since Corona and his defense counsels are expected to start submitting their pieces of evidence as well as their witnesses to disprove the charges leveled against the Chief Justice in at least three Articles of Impeachment.

Earlier, it was the prosecution and its propaganda spokesmen who kept up with their media blitz, making it appear that their case against the CJ was airtight and that there was no way his defense lawyers can explain away his alleged millions in his bank accounts.

And they have not stopped calling for his resignation, despite the trial being at an advance stage at this point, intimating that the CJ is afraid of testifying before the Senate Court because of his fear at being humiliated.

That is a pretty strange reaction, coming as it does from a prosecution panel and congressional allies who constantly crow that they have already won the case. If the CJ loses the case, it stands to reason that he will be out of the SC position, so why are they trying to exert pressure for him to resign and even portray Corona as being afraid to testify?

The Chief Justice appears to now be giving them a dose of their own medicine. He was all over a radio-TV network being interviewed and answering all questions posed to him by the anchors — including that which was of a personal nature, such as his having had an alleged romantic liaison with a woman who bore him two children, which was laughed off by him and his wife, who was in the studios.

Quite frankly, the CJ did very well in candid interviews, and on TV, being a cool medium, he seemed to handle the medium well, as he was not certainly not a turn off at all. He came off explaining his side, in a soft-spoken manner at that, and credibly and confidently.

He was, to many who do not know him, an amiable person who not only knew what he was talking about but was also dignified and not at all coming off as a braggart, unlike the prosecution spokesmen who have projected themselves as such and have moreover been caught at lying by the general public on their claims of their “preponderance of evidence” submitted to serve as proof of their charges against the CJ.

That’s really a laugh, if one who follows the trial alreadt knows, since the prosecution, despite the number of witnesses called and documents presented, failed to prove its case, especially on Articles 3 and 7.

While Article 2, which the prosecution claims is its strongest suit and on which it relies to get Corona convicted, the truth is, the documentary evidence of the CJ’s Statement of Assets and Liabilities Networth (SALn) is only one side of the picture and the defense no doubt will have explanations on this. As for his alleged millions in the bank, even that can be explained, as the CJ himself said in the TV interview yesterday.

It has to be pointed out that the prosecution clearly failed to prove that graft and corruption accompanied the deposits in the bank accounts of Corona, which charge can be found in Article 2.3.

As for the prosecution’s claim of the CJ’s “suspected” and “reported” illegally obtained wealth, under Article 2.4, even that does not apply, given the fact that the Senate court had already ruled that Article 2.4 has been scrapped.

About the only justification for the prosecution to include the deposits in the accounts under the CJ’s name is to tie this up with his SALn where he was supposed to have merely stated that his cash in bank was only P 3.5 million as against what the prosecution’s math says is P35 million plus $700,000 in the CJ’s dollar account. But there really is nothing about bank accounts in 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3.

But all this, said the CJ, can be easily explained. And if explained well and credibly, the prosecution will certainly have rotten tomatoes thrown at their faces.