Impeachment Process
Never on a Sunday
By ATTY. RENE ESPINA Former Senator
MANILA, Philippines — On Monday, the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona begins in the Senate. In order to give my readers a better understanding of impeachment, let me cite Article XI of our Constitution – Accountability of Public Officers.
Section 1. Public Office is a public trust. Public Officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.
Section 2. The President,the Vice President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Consitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.
Section 3. (1) The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment. (2) A verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen upon a resolution of endorsement by any member thereof, which shall be included in the order of business within 10 session days and referred to the proper committee within 3 session days thereafter. The committee after hearing and by a majority vote of all its Members, shall submit its report to the House within 60 session days with such referral together with the corresponding resolution. xxx (3) A vote of at least one third of all the Members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. The vote of each Member shall be recorded. (4) In case the verified complaint of resolution or impeachment is filed by at least one third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed. (6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When sitting for that purpose, the Senators shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside but shall not vote. No person shall be convicted without concurrence of two thirds of all the Members of the Senate.
I shall treat this serious matter of impeachment with sobriety and a sense of scholarly detachment. And I shall as much as humanly possible try not to be influenced by any statements intended to project the side of the prosecutors or that of the defense. The only exception would be to cite the facts as they are presented in the Senate hearings.
The public is aware that as early as the inauguration of the new administration, Malacañang began to distance itself from defendant CJ Corona.
In fact, the administering justice for the President’s Oath of Office was Justice Conchita Carpio Morales. Thereafter there were several cases that were decided by the Supreme Court against Malacañang. One was the declaration of unconstitutionality of the Truth Commission. The SC said that the administrative order creating the commission was defective in the sense that it only authorized the Truth Commission to investigate the “previous administration.” There were some comments that had the administration added the letter S to the word administration, the constitutional provision about equal protection of the laws would have been satisfied.
There were other cases which were decided by the SC which were not to the liking of the government, such as the TRO stopping the hold departure order of President GMA. To cut a long story short, the differences of opinion between Malacañang and the SC resulted in the present impeachment trial in the Senate.
I am disturbed by the statement of a senator who is not a lawyer who was quoted by the press as saying that he will not look at the evidence presented during the Senate trial but at the prevailing public opinion and that he will follow what the people want or words to that effect.
I hope that reason, fairness, justice, and due process of law will prevail to uphold the Constitution. Any other procedure of the Senate impeachment trial will certainly destabilize our country.
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