"His conviction unavoidably exposed him to public humiliation, ridicule and deprived him of all his emoluments as public official and retirement benefits."
"His conviction unavoidably exposed him to public humiliation, ridicule and deprived him of all his emoluments as public official and retirement benefits."There is no question, the late Chief Justice Renato C. Corona was impeached in 2012 by the House of Representatives. The trial for his impeachment that was carried out by the Senate, acting as impeachment court, was treated as a political act, much that the consequence was his removal from office. Such action, however, is limited to public officials enumerated in the Constitution. Hence, while they hold public office they cannot be sued, which reason why the framers of the Constitution devised a process that impeachable officials must first be removed from office before the government can institute the proper criminal case for the imposition of the appropriate penalty.
Corona’s removal from office was decided by the majority of the members of the Senate Impeachment Court. That decision should have opened the door for his prosecution for the specific offense he allegedly violated before the Ombudsman.
Impeachment is considered a political act or as constitutionalists would put it, a political question because it has reference to the sovereign power of the state to act, being omnipotent, immutable, indivisible, plenary and beyond reproach. This is the theory about the sovereign power of the state.
Many, however, could not understand this process of removing public officials from office and later prosecuting them in court for the offense they committed which the same impeachment court could do to simplify the process and for the speedy disposition of justice. They forgot that even if impeachment is a political question, and the removal of a public official can be removed without a cause like a vote for no confidence, that sovereign exercise of power can never be questioned because it is plenary and omnipotent.
Such is accepted but the hypocrites refuse to concede. In the military, they can even remove any leader they wish and call the process coup d’ etat, putsch or install their puppet civilian leader like those soldiers that served as mercenaries of the CIA. Only after the leader that grabbed power is elected can his title be changed from that of a de facto to a de jure president, if that be the case.
Because the hypocrites are adamant in making it appear they would be rendering justice to their political enemy, they segregated the process; that impeachment should be made separate from prosecuting an official for the alleged offense he committed. His impeachment only means his removal from office for accordingly, he is immune from suit. They refuse to admit he is being impeached because he cannot be sued even if there are allegations of culpable violation of the Constitution.
However, prosecuting him for the offense must be made separate much that the evidence that will be presented against must be beyond reasonable doubt, while his removal from office merely requires the majority vote of the members of the Senate Impeachment Court.
It is the vote of the majority and not the evidence that determines the fate of the accused official. This backwater judicial procedure only opens the Pandora’s Box to corruption like bribing politicians to vote in favor of one whom their God wish to destroy. This explains why suddenly President Aquino acted like Santa Claus giving every member of the Senate Impeachment Court their allotment of the so-called Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). Noynoy wanted to ensure that his enemy, the chief justice, is impeached from office by hook or by crook.
Because our democracy and due process are closely intertwined, they muddle everything that they inserted an oxymoron clause in the Constitution. They rejected the idea that when one is being tried for impeachment, they would be punishing him again for the same offense but applying the penal code. They refuse to accept that they will be forcing the accused to undergo double jeopardy for the fact that he will be tried for the same offense, will be confronted by the same witnesses to testify for or against him, and presented with the same evidence only to say the case is different.
But how could the court possibly proceed to acquit him when his impeachment already amounted to a conviction? The institution of a criminal proceeding after the accused official has been impeached is mandatory because his removal from office now opens for trial the charge against him.
But whatever semantics the hypocritical constitutionalists would use, they cannot deny that his removal from office is a form of punishment, worst, for it unavoidably exposed him to public humiliation, ridicule and deprived him of all his emoluments as public official and retirement benefits. Section 3, subsection 7 of Article XI of the Constitution is clear to quote: “(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial, and punishment, according to law.”
This means, the Aquino government was duty-bound to institute criminal proceeding against Corona because his impeachment was a condition precedent that must be complied with. Remember, Corona’s immunity from suit provided in Section 2, Article XI was the one that prevented the court from instituting criminal proceedings against him. The court was rather remiss in failing to file the appropriate criminal charges against the impeached Chief Justice such that it equally rendered injustice to him after the Ombudsman failed to take the necessary and proper action.
They impeached the accused because the majority voted for his removal. But to try him in a criminal case, they in effect placed the accused in double jeopardy because he would be tried for the same offense for which he was removed. But there is no way the court could acquit him because that would be tantamount to overriding the decision of the Impeachment Court. It is not so much that the Senate Impeachment Court is different from the judicial courts, but of the likelihood that the politicians will never admit they committed an error to result in a serious constitutional impasse leading to constitutional crisis.
Since, the impeached chief justice died without being charged of the offense or has a pending case filed against him in court, the presumption of innocence remains that Corona was not guilty of any crime. While impeachment operates in a different parameter from that of a criminal case, the guilt of the accused must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It is not even his conviction that is important but the observance of a due process of being tried and to rebut the charges against him in the court of law. Ironically, we ousted our chief justice and denied him of his day in court, by forfeiting his retirement benefits motu proprio.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
