House trial team inspects Senate

MANILA, Philippines - House members designated as prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona made a quick inspection yesterday of the Senate complex where they will hold office for the duration of the trial, which begins on Jan. 16.

Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, impeachment manager of the prosecution panel, said that while they were primarily preparing for the legal aspect of the trial, especially the presentation of evidence, they wanted to make sure that other matters were properly addressed like media access, and providing spaces for the secretariat and for prosecutors.

“We thank the Senate for the preparation, and the spaces they provided for our team. We have our prosecutors meeting anytime today, we’ll have our own media training to ensure that our prosecutors and lawyers will be aware of the requirements for media,” Abaya said.

“We are all set for Monday and we thank the Senate for the preparations,” he added. “First of all we are here because we want to make sure that the facility and our proposed layout of the area are followed. What we could tell the people is that there is minimal expense of the people’s money. We tried to make do with the available desks, cabinets, and lockers of the Senate,” Abaya pointed out.

“What we have is space for media so as to have good access to our spokespersons, the second space is the working area of the secretariat and the nearest to window is for the prosecutors. The logical arrangement is for accessibility, definitely we want the media to have free access, secretariat will have semi-restricted access, and the prosecutors, hope you would understand, that they will be the most restricted area,” Abaya said.

The House spent some P30,000 for putting dividers in the Padilla Room, which now has a receiving area, a major working area and a conference room, said An Waray Rep. Florencio Noel.

The Padilla Room is subdivided into three rooms for the prosecution camp, one each for the spokespersons, the secretariat, and the prosecutors.

“We are very much contented with the Senate preparations for us for the impeachment,” Rep. Romero Quimbo, spokesman for the prosecution team, said. “We are public servants and we make do with whatever is prepared for us and we will make do.”

He reiterated that the defense team was trying to delay or block the impeachment trial with its plea to have the prosecutors cited in contempt by senator-judges.

“That is just another delaying tactic but we strongly believe that the Senate will continue the trial immediately as mandated by the Constitution,” Quimbo said.

He also stressed that they were religiously complying with the rule on SALN (Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net worth) disclosure. He stressed that the issue was not ownership of property but refusal or failure to disclose SALN.

Asked if they met with senators, Quimbo said they did not.

“We are barred from talking to senators unless on administrative purposes but we have been advised not to talk to them so as not to create impression that we are cooking something,” Quimbo said.  

Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption party-list Rep. Sherwin Tugna, for his part, said it was the defense panel which was resorting to black propaganda to drum up sympathy.

“The defense has been trying to portray that the House prosecution is resorting to trial by publicity. On the contrary, it is they that have been massively resorting to these prohibited out-of-court strategies,” Tugna said in a statement.

“The defense lead counsel’s (former justice Serafin Cuevas) statements in interviews to the media that the Palace is lobbying with the senator-judges to secure conviction have no other purpose but to sway public opinion in their favor,” he said. 

He said defense lawyers are conditioning the minds of the public to make them believe that a Corona conviction is not based on merit but a result of Malacannang’s alleged lobbying.

“So now, who is resorting to trial by publicity? Clearly, it is them,” Tugna said. Meanwhile, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) public affairs committee, said senator-judges should not let the mudslinging between Corona and the prosecution panel cloud their judgment in the impeachment trial.

“We are hoping that the proper bodies would not be unduly influenced by these obvious maneuvers by the two parties,” he said.

“What is important is the judges will still be objective and rule on the matter based on the facts presented in the trial proper,” he said.

He also called on the public not to easily pass judgment on Corona. “We should be critical observers of the would-be proceedings, follow it closely, and not make judgments immediately,” he said.

The camp of Corona recently asked the Senate to discipline members of the House prosecution panel for disclosing derogatory information about him in public ahead of the trial. Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero, Evelyn Macairan