The vote of the Senate President
HON. JUAN PONCE ENRILE
On Article II of the Articles of Impeachment against Hon. Chief Justice Renato C. Corona
* * *
In the entire course of this impeachment trial, I have faced many
difficult challenges to my own and the Court’s collective wisdom, our
sense of justice and fairness, the delicate balancing act we must
perform to ensure that we do not stray from the strictures of the
Constitution, the law and our rules.
This trial began and unfolded against the backdrop of a highly
charged and emotional atmosphere, acrimonious debate in and outside the
confines of this Court, and a deep political fissure which threatened
the stability of our democratic institutions.
But the impact of the many events that transpired since December 12
last year to this very day, taken altogether, cannot compare to the
sense of heaviness that I feel at this very moment.
The culmination of this national drama is at hand, and the time has
come for me to render judgment on the person before whom I took my Oath
of Office as a Senator of the Republic…no less than the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, Renato C. Corona.
The Respondent Chief Justice and his family understandably feel deeply hurt, pained and aggrieved.
As a lawyer, I must confess that I was personally frustrated by the
loose and hasty crafting and preparation that characterized the
presentation of the charges contained in the Articles of Impeachment. It
seemed that the case was being built up only after the charges were
actually filed. The repeated recourse to this Court’s compulsory
processes to obtain evidence which normally should have formed the
factual basis of the charges in the first place further burdened and, at
times, taxed the patience of this Court.
We have witnessed with disdain the indiscriminate, deliberate and
illegal machinations of some parties who have been less than forthright
with this Court in presenting dubiously procured and misleading
documents which were spread to the media obviously to influence this
Court’s and the public’s opinion.
The letter of the Administrator of the Land Registration Authority
which contained, as an attachment, a list of 45 properties supposedly
owned by the Respondent Chief Justice, was fed to the media even before
we could begin the actual trial of this case.
Even before the Hon. Ombudsman, Conchita Carpio Morales, was called
to testify before this Court, her letter to the Chief Justice requiring
him to explain in 72 hours an alleged aggregate amount of US$10M in
several dollar accounts was leaked to the media right before the
resumption of this trial last May 7.
We have sternly cautioned against unethical and unprofessional
conduct, the penchant to engage in trial by publicity, to use the media
to disseminate and advance so called “information” or “evidence”, to
provoke and disrespect this Court and its members, and to irresponsibly
hurl disparaging insinuations and accusations.
We have tried to impress upon everyone who may be similarly motivated
and inclined to test our will that this Court means serious business
and would not succumb to nor allow such underhanded tactics and
gimmickry to deter us from our task.
Prudence and justice dictate that in determining the guilt or
innocence of the Chief Justice, we must try our best to confine
ourselves to the pieces of testimonial and documentary evidence that
have been presented to this Court, to pass upon their relevance, and to
measure and weigh their value in the light of the charges before us.
After all the accusations levelled against the Chief Justice – eight
(8) charges in all comprising the Articles of Impeachment – the
Prosecution chose to present evidence only on three Articles (Articles
II, III and VII), and abruptly rested its case.
I have always believed that of these three, the case for the
Prosecution and the Defense will rise or fall on Article II, which is
the subject of this vote.
This Court, at one point, had extensive discussions and differences
of opinion, to be sure, regarding the charge contained in Paragraph 2.4
of Article II that the Chief Justice was “suspected and accused of
having accumulated ill-gotten wealth, acquiring assets of high values
and keeping bank accounts with huge deposits”.
We ruled to disallow the introduction of evidence in support of Par.
2.4 which, to this day, I strongly maintain was an invalid charge, it
being based on mere “suspicion”, on so-called “reports”, rather than on
factual allegations.
The Defense and the Chief Justice himself somehow revived this issue
of the nature of his assets by introducing evidence to prove that his
income and assets were legitimate, and by testimony to show how he and
his wife had saved and invested these savings in foreign currency over
so many decades.
I wish to reiterate, for the record, that the Chief Justice does not
stand accused of having amassed any ill-gotten wealth before this
Impeachment Court.
Paragraph 2.2 of Article II of the Articles of Impeachment accuses
the Respondent Chief Justice of failing to disclose to the public his
statement of assets, liabilities and net worth as required by the
Constitution.
I submit that the Chief Justice had justifiable and legal grounds to
rely on the Supreme Court’s procedural and policy guidelines governing
such disclosures as embodied in a Resolution promulgated way back in
1989 when the Respondent was not yet a Member of the Supreme Court.
Under the said guidelines, the Clerk of Court of the Supreme Court,
who is the repository of the SALN’s submitted by all the Members of the
Supreme Court, may furnish copies of the SALN’s in his or her custody to
any person upon request, and upon showing that there is a legitimate
reason for the same.
The Constitution, in Article XI, Sec. 17, states that “in the case of
the President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court,
the Constitutional Commissions and other constitutional offices, and
offices of the armed forces with general or flag rank, the declaration
shall be disclosed to the public in the manner provided by law”.
R.A. 6713, known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for
Public Officials and Employees, recognizes the public’s right to
information on the assets, liabilities, net worth, financial and
business interests of public servants. But it likewise declares it
unlawful for any person “to obtain or use the same for purposes contrary
to morals or public policy or for any commercial purpose other than by
news and communications media for dissemination to the general public”.
Whether the said guidelines violate the letter and spirit of R.A.
6713 and the principle of public accountability is not for this Court to
pass upon. I grant that the Chief Justice believed in good faith that
after periodically filing his sworn Statement of Assets, Liabilities and
Net Worth, the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court were sufficient
to allow the Clerk of Court to comply with the Constitution and the law.
We cannot ignore the fact that the failure or refusal, particularly
of public officials in high government positions, to provide the public
or the media with copies of the SALN’s, continues to be a raging issue
to this day. In fact, some, if not most of the members of the
Prosecution panel itself, the Members of the Supreme Court, members of
Congress and other high officials of the government have been challenged
by media organizations to make their SALN’s available to the public and
to the media.
Paragraph 2.3 of Article II further accuses the Respondent Chief
Justice, based on “reports”, of not including some properties in his
declaration of his assets, liabilities, and net worth, in violation of
the anti-graft and corrupt practices act.
The Prosecution, based on the list it procured from the LRA, claims
that the Chief Justice owned and failed to fully disclose in his SALN 45
real estate assets. Based on the evidence, I am convinced that the
Defense has presented credible evidence to refute this charge and to
explain the exclusion in the Respondent Chief Justice’s SALN’s of
certain properties which have either been sold or legally transferred,
properties which are actually owned by his children and/or third
parties, and properties which were never owned by the Respondent in the
first place.
I am likewise convinced that the Defense has sufficiently established
that there was no ill intention on the part of the Respondent to
understate or misrepresent the value of his real properties.
Proceeding now to the most significant charge involving the
non-disclosure of the Respondent Chief Justice’s cash assets, the
Ombudsman, at the instance of the Defense, testified with a presentation
of a report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), showing 82
bank accounts allegedly belonging to the Respondent.
She further testified that based on her analysis of the report, aided
by the Commission on Audit, the Chief Justice had cash assets in the
examined bank accounts of anywhere from US$10 Million to US$ 12 Million.
Even if we grant the existence of these 82 accounts, the amount of
deposits corresponding to each of these could not just easily, fairly or
logically be summed up to arrive at exactly how much cash assets or
deposits, in actuality and in totality, the Respondent Chief Justice had
or has at any given point in time.
Hence, the Ombudsman’s reference to a “transactional balance” of
about US$12 Million should not mislead this Court in its appreciation of
the facts.
Regrettably, both the Prosecution and the Defense panels decided not
to present the concerned bank officers or the AMLC to ascertain the
veracity of the data allegedly provided by the AMLC to the Office of the
Ombudsman, despite the Respondent’s submission to this Court of a
written waiver to cause the opening of all his bank accounts. Laudable
as this belated act on the part of the Respondent Chief Justice may be,
it would have served him better if he had just presented bank documents
as evidence to either confirm or refute the documents showing his bank
transactions as presented by the Ombudsman. It has not escaped this
Presiding Officer that initially, last May 22nd to be exact, before he
walked out of the halls of this Court, the Chief Justice signed the said
waiver in open court but made the release of the same conditional, that
is, after all the 188 signatories to the Articles of Impeachment and
Senator-Judge Franklin Drilon have signed a similar waiver. It was only
during the hearing last May 25 that the Chief Justice decided to submit
the waiver to the Court without any conditions.
Moreover, even as the Chief Justice had full access to his own bank
accounts and all the opportunity to introduce evidence to disprove the
data, findings and analysis presented by the Ombudsman or the report of
the AMLC, the Defense did not introduce any such evidence.
As it is, the Impeachment Court could only rely on the documents
supplied by the Ombudsman which show the Respondent’s bank transactions
but which do not show the actual bank balances of Respondent’s bank
accounts.
Instead, the Defense presented the Chief Justice himself as its last
witness and pleaded for the Court’s permission to allow the Respondent
to deliver an “opening statement”.
This Court, out of courtesy to the Chief Justice, decided to extend
its understanding and to exercise liberality in granting the request.
The long narration, where the Chief Justice touched on a wide range
of issues, assertions of facts, accusations, opinions and personal
sentiments, which the Respondent said he found necessary to narrate in
order to clear his and his family’s name, was later adopted by the
Defense as the direct testimony of the Respondent. The Prosecution, on
the other hand, waived its right to cross-examine the Chief Justice,
provided the Defense would not conduct any further direct examination.
Nevertheless, the Respondent Chief Justice testified and admitted, in
answer to questions from a member of this Court, that he had around P80
Million in 3 Peso accounts and US$2.4 Million in 4 US Dollar accounts,
but that he had purposely not declared these assets for 2 reasons: (1)
That his Peso accounts represented “co-mingled funds”, and (2) That he
was not required to report or declare his foreign currency deposits in
his SALN because they were absolutely confidential under R.A. 6426.
I disagree on both counts.
If, indeed, any of the Respondent’s cash deposits were co-mingled
with the funds belonging to other parties such as the Basa Guidote
Enterprises, Inc. (BGEI) or his children, the Respondent was still duty
bound to declare these deposits in his SALN, they being admittedly under
his name.
The evidence is devoid of any indication that the Chief Justice was
holding these funds in trust for or that they were actually beneficially
owned by any one other than himself or his wife.
Assuming that any part of such deposits in truth belonged to third
parties, the Respondent could have indicated such third-party funds as
corresponding liabilities in his SALN. That would have reflected his
real net worth.
With all due respect, I believe that the Respondent Chief Justice’s
reliance on the absolute confidentiality accorded to foreign currency
deposits under Section 8 of Republic Act No. 6426 is grossly misplaced.
The Constitution, in Article XI, Sec. 17, provides that “A public
officer or employee shall, upon assumption of office and as often as may
be required by law, submit a declaration under oath of his assets,
liabilities and net worth. x x x ”
Are we now to say that this Constitutional command is limited to a
public official’s assets or deposits in local currency? If so, would we
not be saying, in effect, that the Constitution allows something less
than a full, honest and complete disclosure?
It bears noting that the prescribed form of the SALN quite simply
requires public officers and employees to declare their assets, real and
personal, the latter to include cash and bank deposits, bonds, etc. It
does not require the public officer or employee to indicate whether or
not he or she has foreign currency notes or deposits. Neither does it
require details such as account numbers, account names, bank identity
nor any branch address. All that it requires is a declaration of the
total amount of the funds deposited in any bank account or accounts
maintained by the public official or employee concerned.
Surely, the Chief Justice knows the equivalent value in local
currency of his foreign currency deposits to be able to declare the same
as part of his assets, especially since the aggregate amount of these
foreign currency deposits, by his own account, amounts to US$2.4
Million.
The non-disclosure of these deposits, in both local and foreign
currency, would naturally result in a corresponding distortion of the
Chief Justice’s real net worth.
Consistent with the position taken by this Court in the case filed by
the Philippine Savings Bank before the Supreme Court last February,
pursuant to which the Supreme Court issued a Temporary Restraining
Order, I maintain that the Constitutional principle of public
accountability overrides the absolute confidentiality of foreign
currency deposits.
The provisions of R.A. 6426 cannot be interpreted as an exception to
the unequivocal command and tenor of Article XI, Sec. 17, of the 1987
Constitution, and I regret that the Highest Magistrate of the land, no
less, would think otherwise.
Section 8 of R.A. 6426 provides that except with the written
permission of the depositor, “in no instance shall foreign currency
deposits be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government
official, bureau or office whether judicial or administrative or
legislative or any other entity whether public or private.”
The so-called conflict of laws between R.A. Nos. 6713 and 6426 is
more illusory than real. Section 8 of R.A. No. 6426 merely prohibits the
examination, inquiry or looking into a foreign currency deposit account
by an entity or person other than the depositor himself. But there is
nothing in R.A. No. 6426 which prohibits the depositor from making a
declaration on his own of such foreign currency funds, especially in
this case where the Constitution mandates the depositor who is a public
officer to declare all assets under oath.
Some have raised the question: Why should the Chief Justice be held
accountable for an offense which many, if not most others in Government
are guilty of, perhaps even more than he is? They say that hardly anyone
declares his true net worth anyway.
Here lies what many have posited as a moral dilemma. I believe it is
our duty to resolve this “dilemma” in favor of upholding the law and
sound public policy. If we were to agree with the Respondent that he was
correct in not disclosing the value of his foreign currency deposits
because they are absolutely confidential, can we ever expect any SALN to
be filed by public officials from hereon to be more accurate and true
than they are today?
I am not oblivious to the possible political repercussions of the
final verdict we are called upon to render today. I am deeply concerned
that the people may just so easily ignore, forget, if not completely
miss out, the hard lessons we all must learn from this episode, instead
of grow and mature as citizens of a democratic nation.
Those whose intentions and motivations may be farthest from the lofty
ideals of truth and justice are wont to feast upon this man’s downfall
should this Court render a guilty verdict.
I am equally aware of the tremendous pressure weighing heavily upon
all the members of this Court as we had to come to a decision on this
case, one way or the other.
But to render a just verdict according to my best lights and my own conscience is a sacred duty that I have sworn to perform.
As one who has been through many personal upheavals through all of my
88 years, I, too, have been judged, often unfairly and harshly. But I
have constantly held that those who face the judgment of imperfect and
fallible mortals like us have recourse to the judgment of history, and,
ultimately, of God.
And so, with full trust that the Almighty will see us through the
aftermath of this chapter in our nation’s history, I vote to hold the
Chief Justice, Renato C. Corona, GUILTY as charged under Article II,
Par. 2.3, and that his deliberate act of excluding substantial assets
from his sworn Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth
constitutes a culpable violation of the Constitution.
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| my 2010 photo with former chief justice R.Puno with the sticker "NO TO MIDNIGHT CHIEF JUSTICE" |
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(After 43 trial days and hundreds of grueling hours of hearing, the
Senate sitting as impeachment court have declared Chief Justice Renato
Corona guilty May 29, 2012.
.JPG)
