Not all offenses are impeachable –
Senator-Judges

ARE THE OFFENSES that prosecution lawyers are trying to pin on Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona really grave enough to warrant impeachment?

Several Senator-Judges raised this question after several days of legal wrangling over seeming technicalities by prosecution and defense lawyers during the impeachment trial of Corona.

Senator-Judge Joker Arroyo urged the prosecution panel to give them evidence of what truly constitutes an impeachable offense on the part of Chief Justice Renato Corona as the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice entered its eleventh day.

“Not every offense is an impeachable offense,” Arroyo said, following deliberations on what the prosecution said were erroneous entries on Corona’s SALNs with regard to the value of real estate properties that he and his family allegedly owned.

Senator-Judge Francis Escudero affirmed the statement of Arroyo, saying that if Corona, hypothetically, was ever caught jaywalking, he would be guilty of violating a crime. However, Escudero stressed, the crime of jaywalking would hardly be an impeachable offense.

Earlier, the Registrars of Deeds of Quezon City and Marikina and officials of Burgundy Plaza, Megaworld and Ayala Land presented Deeds of Absolute Sale, Transfer Certificates of Title and Certificates Authorizing Registration, which the prosecution used as basis to prove that Corona did not truthfully declare the correct amounts of the properties in his SALN or omitted their declaration altogether, an offense that falls under Article of Impeachment Number 2.

The defense panel pointed out that discrepancies in a SALN can be corrected and does not qualify as a “high crime” if it can not be proven that the erroneous entries were made in bad faith.

The prosecution concurred that the omission of some properties in a SALN is not a high crime.

Several Senator-judges aired the common view that whether it was a crime of commission or omission that the respondent is being charged of, the prosecution must present strong evidence of consistent bad faith or malice accompanying the crime, or they will be wasting their time hearing what may be an impeachable offense.