Defense counsel Serafin Cuevas has shown his mastery of the rules of court. His objections come out from his sleeves at his command, like a maestro that compels the audience and actors to heed. The prosecution has conversely shown, not necessarily in direct inverse proportion, its lack of skills at the technical rules. At one time, Neil Tupaz has to beg the Impeachment Court to relax the rules, and allow the prosecution’s clearly leading, and at times, misleading questions.
Before the Impeachment Court, in the Supreme Court, in the halls of Congress, in Malacanang, in government offices, and in corporate boardrooms, the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona has been the daily topic. For a month now, and the months to come, the airwaves are shut with the arguments for and against, and the faces behind them.
All the lawyers, judges, government and corporate executives do not constitute the majority of the Filipinos. The 92 million Filipinos are the particles of sovereignty, and the majority of them are not the high and mighty, nor are they the intellectuals who understand the nuances of the law. They are the Juan de la Cruces who argue in the parks, in barber shops, in barangay waiting shades, in the farms, in sari-sari stores. They are the majority whose judgment on how the impeachment trial is conducted will matter the most.
The issue of whether the Supreme Court can review the acts of the Impeachment Court has elicited arguments for or against. When the dust is settled, it is still public opinion that would win the day.
The public, unlike the lawyers, reduce the argument to its bare essentials. Bereft with knowledge of jurisprudence, the common man can present knock-out arguments without legalese.
Should the Impeachment Court be supreme on matters of impeachment? Can the Supreme Court issue a TRO against it?
The barber shop argument can as be simplistic as this: If the Impeachment Court is the sole authority to remove from office the justices of the Supreme Court, the President, Vice-President, the Ombudsman, and the members of the Constitutional Commission, then its rulings and decisions should not be subject to review by the said officials.
It would be absurd that the person subject of the disciplining authority can rule to enjoin and nullify the actions of the latter. To sustain that the persons subject of the disciplining authority can decide to override the latter escapes logic and common sense.
Should the House of Representatives decide to impeach the eight justices who voted for issuing the TRO, could the latter overturn the impeachment on the ground of grave abuse of discretion?
The 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article XI, Section 2 reads: “The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.”
This constitutional allocation of power comes directly from the sovereign people when they ratified the constitution. The provision empowers the Impeachment Court, and that court alone, that can discipline the impeachable officials. This is precisely the system of check and balance.
There are three branches of government, and each branch has a way of checking each other. The Congress has the power of the purse, the Executive the sword, and the Supreme Court, the interpretation of the laws. The President may veto the law, and the Supreme Court may declare the law unconstitutional. Inherent in the powers of these branches of the government are their limitations.
Yet, the Impeachment Court does not belong to any of the branch of government. When senators-judges take their oaths upon using the judicial robes, they cease to be legislators, but judges tasked by the sovereign to ferret –out the truth. Said court is a sui generis, a class in its own, quite apart from the three branches of government. The Executive, and the Congress do not have the prerogative to check it. Nor is the Supreme Court, under Article XI of the Philippine Constitution, granted review power. If the sovereign really wanted the Supreme Court to review the Impeachment Court, that power should have been provided for in the same Article XI that created the latter.
The exercise of review by the Supreme Court when it issued the TRO enjoining the Impeachment Court from opening the dollar accounts of CJ Corona is based on the broad power under Article XIII of the 1987 Constitution , Section 1: “x x x Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.”
This broad power of the Supreme Court cannot be invoked to review the actions of the Impeachment Court. The Impeachment Court is not any branch of government, nor its instrumentality. It is even higher than the three branches of government on matters of impeachment.
It may be asked, Can the Supreme Court nullify the decision of the Impeachment Court? Obviously it cannot. If the Supreme Court cannot override the decision of the Impeachment Court, it certainly should not be allowed to review the interlocutory orders of the latter. What is prohibited cannot be indirectly tolerated. That is why the Regional Trial Court can issue TRO against acts of the lower court because the former has the power to review the decision in the main case.
These common sense arguments pervade in the streets, in parks, and shops. These arguments take the rounds of these places where the common man observes how the fate of CJ Corona is being tried. They may lack the legal expertise of Serafin Cuevas. They may not have read the SCRA. But you cannot take away their common sense, their capacity to sift substance and truth from legal permutations.
