The Historical Impeachment of A Chief Justice in the Philippines

The impeachment trial of the Philippine’s current Supreme Court Chief Justice, Renato Corona, begins today, January 16, 2012. He will be tried before the 23-person Senate members who will sit as judges to determine whether he is guilty of the complaints imputed against him. All members of the judiciary and the legal industry are all out in monitoring how the impeachment trial will go as it marks a historical event most especially in the judiciary department of the Philippines, being the first impeachment trial against a Supreme Court’s highest ranking magistrate official.

Even law students have sparking interests over the Constitutional relevance of the issue as there are varying opinions that the Executive department stepped over the boundaries on the separation of powers in the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary departments of the Philippines. I believe this issue probably emanates from the accusations made against the allegedly influencing tactics made by President Aquino to influence his allies who are members of the House of Representatives to file an impeachment complaint against the Chief Justice. This is quite different from the impeachment made against Merceditas Guttierez, former Ombudsman which was initiated by private citizens. This move of President Aquino is probably in line with his objective of keeping the ball rolling on his anti-graft campaign. But again, the question remains whether this move had weakened the independence of the judiciary system of the Philippines?




It was also reported that the attack against Corona is construed to be a direct attack to the judiciary department. I do not think so. Yes, Corona is seen to be an iconic representative of the judiciary department of the country but the impeachment complaint against him is not an impeachment complaint against the judiciary in general as an institution. The Philippine Constitution provides provisions for impeaching high ranking public officials and the main essence of this provision is to eradicate corruption and promote transparency and accountability of public officials in the Philippine government. Otherwise, if an impeachment process is always taken to be against the institution to which the impeachable public official represents there is no sense of making an impeachment at all as the State basically created a law that will corollary attack its own governmental tribunals and agencies.

The impeachment process will generally determine whether Chief Justice Corona is indeed guilty of the culpable acts imputed against him and whether he is worthy of holding the title of the Chief magistrate of one of the highest tribunal department in the country. This is definitely an exciting legal battle in the Philippine history with focus on the trial on the merits of the case. But for one thing, I give due recognition on the effort of Corona to face the trial with confidence. The whole nation has their eye on how the impeachment trial will go and the battle is just barely beginning.