BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
5/26-27/2012
The hypocrites once again found themselves squirming like worms after beleaguered Chief Justice Renato Corona threw back the challenge to the 188 members of Congress who signed the impeachment complaint, including Senator Franklin Drilon.
Such is the pathetic scenario of a country that has gone haywire. They wanted Corona to defend himself as not guilty, and not for them to prove that he is. Of course, the critics would insist on their right to cross-examine him. But whatever he says now has become irrelevant because he has taken the offensive of challenging them to do the same, of signing a waiver that would allow the opening not only of the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, but also of their bank accounts, including their foreign currency deposits. Drilon cannot give his con-man's argument that it is Corona who is on trial, and therefore it is for him to prove his innocence.
It may sound logical, but if one knows what constitutes fair play, that argument of Drilon is pathetically illogical and stupid. First, Corona was compelled to raise that challenge because the trial that has been reduced to a circus has not proven anything. Second, many of those charges listed in the original impeachment complaint have already been dismissed, and the hypocrites have to swallow their pride by amending their complaint for fear the presiding judge might just dismiss their complaint altogether.
As Corona would put it, the discrepancies in one's SALN is not an impeachable offense because he is not under any legal obligation to declare all his assets to which the laws itself provides protection, and he is referring to the banking secrecy law. Section 2 of Republic Act No. 1405 provides, to quote: "All deposits of whatever nature with banks or banking institutions in the Philippines x x x, are x considered as of an absolutely confidential nature and may not be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office, except upon written permission of the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation."
Despite that specific provision, the hypocrites thought it wise to just violate R.A. No. 1405 entertaining the usual notion that once disclosed, the accused would, by moral compulsion, have to explain his bank account or why he failed to include it in his SALN. They wanted to skip the civilized process of proving their case based on the merits of that they could legally obtain. When asked how they managed to obtain copies of those dubious bank records that purport to represent the deposits of Corona, which was not even certified by the bank, the complainants come out with their silly alibi that even a man just released from a mental asylum would have doubts.
Nonetheless, the hypocrites came back dangling the same line that allegedly Corona has 82 bank accounts. They were out to publicly ridicule and discredit the chief justice and make travesty of our laws. Thus, when they came out with their fantastic figure of summing up Corona's dollar account reaching a staggering figure of $12 million by the simpleton process of just adding all the transactions that put on the spotlight the sanity of those who testified. As one would quip, it was not the dollar account of Corona the public discovered, but on the insanity of people who have been parading themselves as "holier than thou."
More than anything else, Republic Act No. 6426 or An Act Instituting a Foreign Currency Deposit System in the Philippines is more stringent than R.A. No. 1405. Specifically, Section 8 provides, to quote: "All foreign currency deposits authorized under this Act, x x x, are hereby declared as and considered of an absolutely confidential nature and, except upon the written permission of the depositor, in no instance shall foreign currency deposits be examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office whether judicial or administrative or legislative, or any other entity whether public or private; x x x, That said foreign currency deposits shall be exempt from attachment, garnishment, or any other order or process of any court, legislative body, government agency or any administrative body whatsoever." Note that Section 8 did not put any proviso that would give the courts an excuse to examine foreign currency deposits.
Finally, the prosecution panel, being members of Congress, should have anticipated that contradiction between the law that mandates all government officials to submit their SALN and the law on bank secrecy. It is because of this that Corona believes he has not committed any wrongdoing; and that he will continue to abide by those laws for as long as they are not amended to synchronize them with the objective sought by the law on SALN. In the meantime, either the impeachment court acquit Corona, or take his challenge to put truism to their vagaries about their so-called "tuwid na daan", or follow what that infamous Supreme Court precedent during the time of Hilario Davide, that instead of convicting the Marcoses of acquiring ill-gotten wealth, it proceeded to convict their money, thus justifying the grabbing of the foreign currency deposit without the hypocrites having to prove anything.
