Weak prosecution, strong evidence

AMADO P. MACASAET

‘Incompetence, while not being a virtue, is not a crime. On the other hand, lying under oath and stealing as defined by Chief Justice Corona himself, are crimes.’

HOW should a judge decide, given the incompetence of the prosecution and the irrefutable evidence against the accused? What should be the main basis of his ruling?

First, I dare say that incompetence, while not being a virtue, is not a crime.

On the other hand, lying under oath and stealing as defined by Chief Justice Corona himself, are crimes. Committed by a Chief Justice they could easily be considered as breach of public trust, a crime that should be punished by conviction in an impeachment trial.

The incompetence, in fact idiocy, of the prosecution is not remotely related to the evidence that the accused himself produced although he tried to hide it. It matters not how the evidence was discovered.

The Bank Secrecy Law does not exempt deposits in the FCDU from being pried open by the impeachment court when the money is owned by one who is under impeachment trial.

Any person has a duty to report a crime. Otherwise, we encourage criminality by humiliating, even punishing one who discovers a crime and reports it.

That is exactly how the culture of impunity reared its ugly head in the Arroyo regime.

The lawyers of the Chief Justice do not want to put an end to it. For the reason that the prosecution is incompetent and the evidence was illegally obtained? Certainly not!

If by design and duty, I find the bolo of a murderer and surrender it to the court as evidence of a crime, the suspect cannot deny because his name is etched on the handle and his foot and fingerprints are all over the place like the peso and dollar deposits of the Chief Justice are in his name, who should be investigated and eventually punished?

It cannot be me. It should necessarily be the criminal whose crime surfaced after he was impeached. If Chief Justice Corona has not been impeached his crime of hiding wealth acquired by money way above his income would have been a tightly kept secret. Does its discovery by whoever he might be reduce the crime?

Then we conclude that the Chief Justice was aware that he was committing a crime. We also conclude that he designed his won crime from the very beginning probably though, in fact he believed that he could benefit from the secret and finally bring it with him to his grave.

This personal view may not sit with the mind of lawyers. Be that as it may, would the contrary belief change the infallibility or integrity of the evidence? No, it won’t.

So, the impeachment court must necessarily base its verdict on the weight of the evidence, not on the incompetence of the prosecutors who allegedly illegally obtained the evidence.

The Chief Justice should be as clean as Caesar’s wife. That is a valid presumption for a man who, by midnight appointment, became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

It is not by a queer twist of events thatneither Caesar nor his wife is clean. On the contrary, they might have conspired to become secretly dirty by hiding the wealth from their statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

It is a fate they designed for themselves probably or clearly in the belief that the Supreme Court justice is beyond the pale of any law although his sworn duty is to defend the Constitution and the laws. It’s a simple, easy job if the man did not happen to be a simpleton illegally appointed by his peers by misinterpreting a Constitutional provision so plainly and clearly written it defies any interpretation.