2012. Filipinos weren't social media denizens then yet. Smartphones were still priced prohibitively and telcos didn't have the mobile broadband infrastructure. Social media was accessible only through laptops and PCs. Print and broadcast media were still lording it over the country's information landscape.
Renato Corona was impeached December 12, 2011. Congressmen were made to sign the impeachment complaint against him. There were no hearings of the House Committee on Justice. There was no Committee Report to be discussed in the plenary. There was no plenary vote. The impeachment complaint was fast-tracked with the signatures of 188 Congressmen, way more than the 95 required for the complaint to be forwarded to the Senate.
The Senate convened as an Impeachment Court on January 16, 2012. There was confusion among the members of the House Prosecution Panel because of the relative inexperience in handling an impeachment trial even with the benefit of the assistance of private counsels.
Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile made mincemeat of the House Prosecution Panel as the Senate Impeachment Court was reduced to a law school classroom on some days when Enrile, Miriam Defensor Santiago and Joker Arroyo schooled the prosecutors on not only the rules of court but also the rules of evidence. This was in stark contrast to be Defense Panel led by former Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas, which didn't need the continuing legal education the Senators who were legal luminaries, provided the greenhorn prosecution panel.
Once the confusion had been resolved, the Articles of Impeachment had been whittled down to three from the original eight. The trial then began in earnest. It was marred several times by controversy over the discovery of evidence in an unconventional manner. This was true in the case of Kaya Natin convenor Harvey Keh and Quezon City Second District Congressman Jorge Banal with regard to the bank deposits of the Chief Justice.
The most glaring was the testimony provided by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales who read through an unauthenticated Anti-Money Laundering Council report which basically detailed the transactions of Corona's bank accounts but didn't bother to specify their beginning and ending balances as of a particular period. Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago almost blew a vein when she questioned the Ombudsman but she didn't have it in her to impugn her testimony probably out of respect for the former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
On May 29, 2012, the Senate voted on the articles of impeachment. Corona was convicted on the first article and because of this the Senate didn't bother to vote on the other two articles. Three Senators voted to acquit Corona - Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor Santiago and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
It was the ultimate height of irony that two staunch anti-Marcos activists would find themselves in the same corner as the dictator's son. But since Ferdinand Jr.'s election to the Senate, he had often been seen in animated discussions with both Arroyo and Santiago. Civility and mutual respect trumped the animosity of history and it may have been that both Arroyo and Santiago believed that the sins of the father are not necessarily the sins of the son.
Corona had been subject to a intensive vilification and demonification campaign in media. The Inquirer ran investigative pieces throughout the duration of the trial. All the personal details of the Corona family's assets were laid bare for public consumption. Corona was not only on trial at the Senate, he was also being tried in the court of public opinion.
By November 2012, the Aquino administration began going after their perceived political enemies in the Senate. Senators Enrile, Estrada, Revilla, Marcos and Honasan were implicated in the pork barrel scam.
Marcos, Revilla and Estrada were opposition stalwarts who were planning to run for higher office in 2016 when their Senate terms expired. They were considered stumbling blocks for the administration candidate in 2016.
Seeing that they had outlived their usefulness with Corona's conviction and with a midterm election scheduled in 2013, the Aquino administration deemed it fit to take them out of the running for 2016. Revilla and Estrada then deemed it fit to reveal how they had been approached by DOTC Secretary Mar Roxas to dialogue with the President about the impeachment trial. It was then they revealed that monies had been offered in exchange for an affirmative vote for Corona's conviction. Enrile, Estrada and Revilla were detained and held without bail as they were charged with plunder. Today, Enrile and Estrada have been granted bail while Revilla remains in detention at Camp Crame.
2018. Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno was ousted by her peers at the Supreme Court today as it voted 8-6 in favor the the Quo Warranto petition filed by the Solicitor-General that the Chief Justice had not submitted her complete Statement of Assets Liabilities and Net Worth to the Judiciary and Bar Council when she had been considered for the position of Chief Justice.
Sereno maintained that the Quo Warranto petition didn't have any basis, it shouldn't have been taken up by the court and the only way for any Justice of the Supreme Court to be removed is through an impeachment trial in the Senate.
The high court upheld the validity of the Quo Warranto petition as a means of removing an impeachable officer whose appointment was void ab initio considering she had not complied with all the of requirements and mislead the Judicial and Bar Council about the veracity of her Statement of Assets Liabilities and Net Worth. It also ruled that she committed a culpable violation of the Constitution by the act of omission.
SS/jb
Online photo/ABSCBN
Online photo/ABSCBN
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