Truth is always relevant

By DAN MARIANO

Like most Filipinos who have been following the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, I was surprised with the ruling of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile not to allow Philippine Airlines vice president Enrique Javier from testifying. The presiding officer of the impeachment court said that the testimony of the PAL executive would be “irrelevant.”

In barring Javier’s appearance as a witness, JPE pointed out that the prosecution should have included the charge of bribery in Article 3, particularly the part accusing Corona of betrayal of public trust. The House prosecutors alleged that Corona received special privileges from PAL while the airline had a pending case before the Supreme Court.

It seems to me that Enrile, who has generally been judicious in his rulings, may have been too hasty in deciding that Javier’s testimony was not relevant to Article 3. I am not a lawyer like most of us who have been following the impeachment proceedings, but a reasonable person would first want to hear what a witness has to say about an issue before deciding whether or not it is “relevant.”

In my humble view, Enrile has been consistent in his rulings—except in this instance. Why? As it turned out, JPE, after ruling that the testimony of Javier was irrelevant to Article 3, later allowed private prosecutor Marlon Manuel to put on record that Corona and his wife were issued PAL platinum cards and that the chief magistrate used his for four-round trip tickets from 2010 to 2011, and that his wife Cristina used hers for 11 trips.

I felt that the least Enrile could have done was to first allow the testimony of Javier. Later, if he deems that the testimony irrelevant, he could have had ruled accordingly and have it stricken off the record. I consulted several lawyer friends to check if my take on this issue has merit or logic, at the very least. What they explained to me was that this, indeed, is the usual procedure during trials.

They suggested that what Enrile should have done was to let the PAL exec testify so that the impeachment court as a whole could have evaluated, in legalese, “the weight, materiality and relevance of the testimonial evidence.” Only afterward should the senator-judges have ruled whether to let the testimony remain or be stricken off the record.

JPE berated—again—the prosecution that he has been “very, very liberal” in his rulings. Maybe so, but again, from what my lawyer friends told me, the Supreme Court, on the other hand, has been very strict in interpreting the provisions of two anti-corruption laws. These are Republic Act 6713, also known as The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officers and Employees, and R.A. 3019, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Section 7 (d) of R.A. 6713 specifically prohibits the solicitation or acceptance, directly or indirectly, of any gift, gratuity, favor, entertainment, loan or anything of monetary value from any person in the course of an official’s duties. That was what the prosecution was trying to prove, that Corona, as chief justice, violated this provision when he accepted and used a platinum card from PAL—which had a pending case before the high tribunal.

Section 14 of R.A. 3019, meanwhile, provides that unsolicited gifts or presents of small or insignificant value offered or given as a mere token of gratitude or friendship according to local custom or usage, is exempted from the provisions of the law. By no stretch of the imagination could the PAL platinum cards given to the Coronas be considered of small or insignificant value—neitherwere they given as an ordinary token of gratitude or friendship according to local custom or usage. Otherwise, every Tom, Dick and Harry in government service who has rendered assistance to PAL in one way or another would have been issued such a card.

On top of these two anti-corruption laws, The New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary provides judges are to avoid impropriety or even the appearance of impropriety in all their activities. Moreover, they or members of their families are prohibited from asking for or accepting any gift, bequest, loan or favor in relation to anything done or to be done or omitted to be done by him or her in connection with the performance of judicial duties.

The Supreme Court has meted out disciplinary actions on judges that it found to have violated the provisions of The New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary, ranging from admonition and stern warning to actual removal from the bench. Is Corona exempt from the coverage of this code?

The prosecution and others have alleged time and again that legal technicalities have become a hindrance to the impeachment trial. I don’t always agree with them as I also subscribe to the principle that the conduct of the impeachment trial should be governed by clearly set rules and that the court should be strict to prevent either dilatory tactics or grandstanding.

This time, however, I am inclined to believe that the casualty in the overly strict interpretation of the rules is the one thing that the court, the media and, above all, the people need to know—the truth.