The problem with prosecutors

FRONTLINE

The problem with prosecutors

By Ninez Cacho-Olivares

Basically, the big problem of the House prosecution panel is the fact that when the Liberal Party congressmen, along with their master in Malacanang, plotted to oust Chief Justice Renato Corona by scaring him into resigning after an impeachment process, they rushed the charges against him.

This explains the railroading in the House of the Articles of Impeachment, which clearly was haphazardly done apart from the fact that the prosecutors had no evidence to start with, which only proves that there never was any probable cause to impeach Corona.

The ouster plot via the resignation of the CJ fell flat on Noynoy, and his House lapdogs faces, as Corona refused to do a Merci Gutierrez, and instead insisted on going through with a trial before the impeachment court.

Knowing that they could not prove their charges before a Senate court, Noynoy and his prosecution panel went on a trial and conviction of Corona by publicity, ably supported by their yellow media.

But there was still the problem of an ongoing Senate trial, where they had to present evidence with which to prove their charges against the CJ. And it was during the trial that the prosecutors started to dissemble but stepped up on their high profile trial by publicity, holding up the evidence of 45 properties they alleged belonged to Corona, which list of properties were clearly padded by the Land Registration Authority headed by a classmate of Noynoy, who wouldnt have padded the list had it only been congressmen asking for such a padded list. The order to the LRA came from his big boss, his classmate.

They painted Corona as a liar and a cheat, and a corrupt official and even went to the extent of getting the Senate court to subpoena witnesses and bank documents despite these having been illegally obtained, then passed on to the media the claimed millions deposited in the bank accounts of Corona which have been seen as fake.

The prosecutions senator-judges, seeing how incompetent and how bereft of witnesses and evidence of the congressmen-prosecutors, helped them along with the aid of their claimed clarificatory questions and manifestations while expanding the coverage of the summons by moving to get even monthly balances of the accounts when the original summons were only for the year-end balances.

And to think that Article 2.4 which was supposed to have been focus on the suspected and reported ill-gotten wealth and bank accounts, was barred as a charge by the Senate court due to the prosecutions mode of charging the respondent.

Article 2.3 does talk about graft and corruption said to be in relation to Coronas statements of assets and liabilities networth (SALn) even that charge of assets has not been proved by the prosecutors to have been obtained through corruption.

That the prosecutions case is very weak can be gleaned from its withdrawal of five articles out of eight and without its having proven its case on the three remaining articles, namely, 2, 3 and 7.

The prosecution knows that its case is weak and is probably banking on Noynoys senator-allies and Noynoy himself to get the numbers to convict Corona.

But the media play has not stopped. The prosecutors blame their dropping of the five articles on the judicial rules issued by the Supreme Court that bars any employee of the SC from testifying before the Senate court without first obtaining the SCs permission. They blame the Senate court for its ruling on hearsay evidence in the matter of the dissenting opinion of Noynoys favorite justice, Lourdes Sereno, where she discloses what falls under judicial privilege during en banc deliberations, as read and testified to by Leila de Lima. They blame the Senate court for refusing to subpoena SC justices and Sereno for her non-appearance even when they could have invited her to be a prosecution witness.

They blame everyone but themselves for their poor performance just as Noynoy does to excuse his failures.