commentary All Pinoys are on trial
All Pinoys are on trial
Thursday, 02 February 2012 00:00
PRECISELY because the ongoing impeachment trial is not only one of a kind, but also the first ever, we are all on trial. Our first impeachment trial was the impeachment of President Erap. But it was unfinished because of the infamous walkout by the private prosecutors followed by the resignation of then-Senate President Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr., which led to the second People Power.
Will those nightmares happen again?" No way!" says Senator-Judge Enrile.
Before I go on, it is a must that we all are convinced that this impeachment trial will be decided based on truth, justice and equity, if only a avoid the constitutionally enshrined People Power. We are all on trial because the lawyers are split. There are those who believe until today that the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the Land, it being the final interpreter of the law. They believe the Supreme Court can alter the judgment of the senator-judges through Certiorai, Prohibition or Mandamus. On the other hand, others, this writer included, believe that the judgment of the senator- judges can only be reviewed and revised or altered by the madlang Pinoys through the ballots or the People Power.
My take is that this divide by the lawyers of what is the role of the Supreme Court vis-a-vis the senator-judges is what puts us all ontrial. We are all on trial in the ongoing impeachment trial of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court simply because we have yet to experience the might of the judgment of the Senate on impeachment trial. But before I go on, it is a must that I should say forcefully and without any scintilla of doubt that this impeachment trial is a precedent-setting. In other words, it is absolutely wrong even to think just for a second that this impeachment trial is a settled law.
No, it is not. With due respect to an earlier opinion by another lawyer, it is absolutely correct to use the Ombudsman Gutierrez case as the leading case. That case is not four square with the present case of Chief Justice Corona. Both the Gutierrez case as well as the previous case of Chief Justice Davide cannot be made the guiding laws simply because both cases, did not reach the Senate. Ergo, it is not applicable to the present case. In fact, all the writings of the well respected former justice and now Ombudsman Morales are but her opinion and has not reach the role or status of Stare Decisis or res judicata. They will remain as mere opinion. No more, no less!
We are all on trial - the prosecutors, the defense counsels, the senator-judges and the entire Filipino people. This is so because in the first place when something is on trial it simply means that that thing is put to a proof. Simply put, in legal parlance, it means the hearing and judgment of a matter in issue. This is the very reason why it is absurd to put a thing on trial (on issue) if it has already been tried (settled). Don't you think so?
We are all on trial because we have yet to know the progress of the hearings/ sessions (whatever you may call it) and the judgment/ ruling/finding by the senator judges, and, finally the acceptability or denial by us - the madlang Pinoys.
Take note that I did not include the Supreme Court as the last recourse. I humbly believe that under the 1987 Constitution, the highest or the ultimate law is not the Supreme Court but the madlang Pinoys or the Constitutionally enshrined People Power. It is my take that to argue otherwise is to be myopic, as a matter of speaking, seeing the trees but not the forest.
Why do I say so? Yes, the madlang Pinoy did not exercise People Power in the Davide case simply because poor --the greatest number of Filipinos--as we may be, the Almighty has gifted us with practical wisdom (plazans call it wa-is). During the Chief Justice Davide case, the madlang Pinoys thought it was unwise, if not unhealthy, to go to the streets because unlike martial law, where the country was ruled by a President, who was a bartop-notcher and twice elected President, the late President Marcos was not accused of stealing the presidency "not once but twice." Further, then Chief Justice Hilario Davide was fully supported by a president, who appeared on TV to say: "I am sorry" at the height of the Hello Garci controversy.
(Butch Z. Bagabuyo is former senior state prosecutor.)
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