Getting nastier by the day

BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
2/25-26/2012



Things are getting nastier by the day for those raving hound dogs of Malacañang. Practically all their allegations have crumbled. It may not be a case of “losing the war, but not the battle”, but they already lost the war even before judgment came. They already lost much of their credibility, even the possibility of being re-elected or of their ambition for a higher office by their grandstanding that ended up in unexpected fiasco.

The perception is that it would be next to impossibility to convict Chief Justice Renato Corona. Doing that could even trigger an avalanche of possible backlash. Whatever will be their argument about the impeachment proceedings as political, criminal or civil no longer has value because that process has been shattered to bits. The biggest casualty is no less than the mastermind who would not mind the ethics of legality just to satisfy his lust for revenge. His credibility went down the drain by buffoonery of his cocker-spaniels in handling the impeachment trial.

In the case of Article 3, it was obvious the prosecution could not proceed to present and argue about that Platinum Card and the other privileges given by PAL to Corona, and for allegedly engaging in shopping spree at Rustan’s using the Judiciary Development Fund, and bringing along witnesses to testify, for as Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile pointed out, they were already imputing a crime of bribery which they failed to include in their complaint.

In their last ditch attempt to salvage that item, the prosecution insisted it is covered by their allegation of “betrayal of public trust.” Again, defense counsel Serafin Cuevas reminded them that betrayal of public trust is a conclusion of fact. Enrile has to trash their evidence and disallow their witnesses to testify because they would, in effect, be presenting evidence and witnesses testifying on something not included in the complaint.

In fact, nobody has yet attempted to cross their carefully crafted line to ask who among the “Goodfellas” in that division received a Platinum Card handed by PAL to a court where it has pending cases. As said, that now is water under the bridge because that issue has been shut off by their ineptness to charge Corona and company for the crime of bribery.

Likewise, the Senate impeachment court can never proceed to investigate the bank account of Corona, unless the court issues an order for the bank to do so. The irreparable snag came when suddenly Supreme Court granted the petition of the defense for a temporary restraining order reiterating the long-adhered principle of disallowing one from engaging in fishing expedition. The prosecution were bluntly forbidden from using the impeachment court, with the collusion of some hypocritical senator-judges, as their instrument to gather for them the evidence in support of their allegation, and not that they have at hand evidence to support their specific allegation.

Their insistence in letting the officials of PSBank, led by its president Pascual Garcia III, to testify based on spurious documents with one poppycock senator-judge insisting of just comparing those documents that were surreptitiously taken out from the bank without its certification, delivered the final coup de grace to that article. Most serious, it opened the Pandora’s Box of Malacañang’s complicity in prying into the bank account of depositors. That was clear in the admission made by Garcia that only Bangko Sentral and the Anti-Money Laundering Council have access to open the dollar and foreign accounts of their clients, including that of Justice Corona.

Surely, BSP and AMLC would have no interest in getting to know the dollar account of Corona had they not been ordered to get a copy with two silly congressmen, Reynaldo Umali and Jorge “Bolet” Banal, presenting them with all their pretensions of ignorance they were holding on to a stolen document.

In fact, the possible involvement of AMLC has put in line why that imperialist-dictated law was in the first place enacted. The role of AMLC would come in only if there was an illegal transfer of fund from the Philippines to other countries, and vice versa, with suspicion that said transfer is being used to erase all traces that the fund came from an illegal source. A mere dollar account without a movement, except that it was deposited by one not under suspicion of having committed any of those crimes enumerated in Section 3 (i) of R.A. No. 9160, necessitated the need to shred for good Article 2.

Finally, what good will it do to for the impeachment court to go along with those sycophants-turned-stupid clowns if that would mean the court’s involvement in a crime by their acceptance of evidence they know was illegally sourced? Should somebody point to PNoy as the one who ordered to prey on Corona’s account, that means, no less, he committed a culpable violation of the Constitution. Of course, PNoy can always rely on his bloated popularity injected by the Western media to show that the Filipino people are that stupid and contended in having a happy-go-lucky character like Bombolini in that old movie the “Secret of Santa Vittoria” govern them.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)