THE HOSTAGING OF THE SENATE
By Mauro Gia Samonte

            “The die is cast,” so declared Julius Caesar as he led his army across the River Rubicon in Northern Italy on January 10, 49 BC. By that, the populist general irreversibly brought the Roman empire into a long civil war in which he fought the autocratic nobility of the Roman Senate and eventually wrested power from Pompey The Great.

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            Since then, the phrase has become the classic expression for events having reached the point of no return. From that point on, the consequences of those events must take place inevitably.

           In the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, quite a number of senators appear to be steering the Upper House toward its own point of no return.   

            The pattern is very dangerous.

            Senator Franklin Drilon pronounces that the impeachment court is “a class of its own”, not  at par with the three co-equal branches of the government but rising above them, subordinate to nothing or to no one. Sharing this view completely are Senator Teofisto Guingona III and only God knows who else.

            Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s own declaration that he will not allow anything or anyone to stop the impeachment proceedings has a way of cementing the Senate inflexibility as regards its authority on impeachment cases.  

            On Friday, SC Administrator Midas Marquez announced that the High Court had already issued a TRO against disclosure of the alleged dollar accounts of CJ Corona. Will Senate yield to the SC TRO or will it defy the order as President Aquino did in the case of the SC TRO on GMA’s travel ban in November?

            In practical reckoning, compliance with the Supreme Court TRO means the impeachment court not issuing a subpoena for production of evidences of and witnesses to the alleged CJ Corona dollar accounts. But in case the Senate decides not to comply, it will have to issue such subpoena. In that event, with what order will the bank comply, that of the Supreme Court or that of the Impeachment Court? 

            It is that kind of abomination that will result from the Senate intransigence in insisting that it alone has the power to decide in impeachment cases.

            Surely Section 6, Article XI of the Philippine Constitution provides that the “Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment.” But that’s as far as the Constitution would go. It does not give Senate the power to interpret the law, much less break it. And breaking the law was what Drilon, in last Thursday’s impeachment hearing,  was coercing the poor PSBank official to do by threatening to cite him for contempt if he refused to divulge information on the alleged CJ Corona\s dollar accounts. Tough luck for Drilon, the guy knew his law and, for all of the senator’s legal braggadocio, stuck to his position that as far as dollar accounts were concerned he would not make any comment to, with emphasis, ANYONE.

            That made the blustering senator behave.

            But the fireworks are bound to flare up more fiercely on Monday, when the SC TRO is implemented. How will the Supreme Court get its order implemented? We glean a clue from the way the SC TRO on the GMA travel ban was defied by Malacanang. Will Senate take that line? In the case of GMA, Malacanang got a saving grace by fast-tracking charges of electoral sabotage against GMA by which the former president was issued arrest warrant and thereby held in check without Malacanang having to defy the TRO. So what ploy can Senate make to get hold of documents on the alleged dollar accounts of CJ Corona without having to defy the SC TRO?

            There appears to be none. It is not the Supreme Court that is preventing the Senate from getting hold of those documents; it is the law on foreign currency deposits, which is very explicit in prohibiting disclosure of such documents except upon permission by the account holder. By the TRO, the Supreme Court is not infringing upon the sole power of the Senate to try impeachment cases; it is interpreting the law perfectly according to the mandate of the Constitution.

            Fortunately for the country, the Senate is getting wise counsel on the issue – from law experts, constitutionalists, even from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) who all advise the Upper House to respect the TRO.

            Senate President Enrile is very vocal about his personal conviction  to comply with the TRO. But there is a catch here. Decisions of the impeachment court, particularly on critical issues like the SC TRO, are thrown to the body to make. What if in a division of the house on whether or not to comply with the TRO the “Nays” have it? As the “Nays” had it on the question of whether or not to open the second envelope in the Estrada impeachment trial.

            As history had it, those “Nays” in the Estrada impeachment trial precipitated the walk out that led to the upheavals culminating in the former president’s ouster from power.

            For all intents and purposes, the matter of the alleged dollar accounts of CJ Corona need no longer be proven. It is a lesson we learned from the Estrada impeachment trial: that evidences and testimonies in impeachment trials are not meant to bring out the truth but are ventilated to condition the public’s mind into accepting that what are mere accusations of evil doings by the accused are true, for which, the public concludes, the impeached official must be damned.

            So now the public, after having been saturated with alleged proofs of CJ Corona’s ill-gotten wealth, is increasingly concluding that the accusations against the Chief Justice are true and that suppressing evidence of those accusations is a most condemnable act.

            Here lies the danger posed by the Supreme Court TRO against disclosure of the alleged CJ Corona’s dollar accounts. To a gullible public, the TRO can only amount to a suppression of evidence.

            That’s just the kind of perception anybody wishing to impose dictatorial rule in the country would like the public to have. Once a vote on the TRO is taken by the impeachment court and well-meaning members of Senate decide to comply with it – meaning don’t subpoena documents and testimonies on the alleged CJ Corona’s dollar accounts – it will be enough a “spark to start a prairie fire.”

            That would be reason enough for the would-be dictator to call in the armed forces.  

            Can it be avoided?

            Sad to say, not any more.

             “Pray,” ardently advised former Senator Kit Tatad at the end of his interview by Karen Davila over ANC. The way the deeply perceptive Kit said it, he was conveying some  foreboding of a dire thing happening in the Corona impeachment that needs divine intervention.

            The minute the Senate took cognizance of the Articles of Impeachment filed by an eager beaver House of Representatives and then shortly after constituted itself into an Impeachment Court to try the impeachment charges, it became hostage to the mechanism set to motion in order to craft the condition for the declaration of martial law.

            The Senate had crossed its own Rubicon. There was no turning back.

            The die was cast.