Since the start of the Impeachment Trial, attention had been focused on Article 2 where the Chief Justice is being accused of having violated the 1987 Philippine Constitution and betrayed the public trust, specifically in connection with his alleged failure to disclose of his wealth or his non-disclosure of assets. Hence, the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth or the so-called SALN have taken a vital place in the presentation of evidence by the prosecution.
Obviously, what the prosecution was trying to show is that there is a discrepancy between what was indicated in the SALN and the actual property holdings of the Chief Justice. That discrepancy would necessarily refer to the wealth or the assets that have not been declared. If that is the case, then it does not really matter whether it consisted only of one or several properties, and what really must be taken into the light is the fact that the Chief Justice - by not disclosing or by his failure to disclose his wealth or assets - could have committed a violation of the Constitution or may have betrayed the public trust.
The alleged violation of the 1987 Philippine Constitution could be simply stated - he took his oath to obey the laws!
In this blog of Tuesday January 24, a brief primer was provided about SALN, and just to reiterate, "Republic Act No. 6713 (as amended) approved on February 20, 1989 provides that public officials and employees have an obligation to accomplish and submit declarations under oath of, and the public has the right to know, their assets, liabilities, net worth and financial and business interests including those of their spouses and of unmarried children under eighteen (18) years of age living in their households."
Consequently, failure to disclose or the non-disclosure of wealth or assets would be a violation of the law, and thus a violation of one's oath, and it follows, it is a violation of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
However, an equally important ground for impeachment is "betrayal of public trust". This could easily be ascertained by answering the question "did you lie to me?" If the answer is yes, then there was betrayal of such trust. If the answer is no, then that is where the defense has to come in and explain how come there is a discrepancy. It is on this point that the Impeachment Court will now decide whether the Chief Justice is guilty or not of the alleged impeachable offense under Article 2.
So far, the prosecution seems to have presented practically all that is necessary to build up a case under Article 2. Enough is enough. Anything more than that may be misconstrued as trial by publicity and an intention to merely humiliate a person. That is why, the senators-judges have warned the prosecution not to go on a "fishing expedition" for evidence. But as to whether the evidence so far presented is admissible or not, and credible or not, so as to be given weight - those are the issues which the Impeachment Court would decide on and not for this blog or the public to speculate on.
The bottomline still would be, tt is now for the defense to present their case against Article 2 rather than going into any argument on technicalities and the right to the so-called "due process". Such due process is actually the right to be heard or the right to a hearing. This trial is part of such due process. Defense will have the opportunity to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses presented so far. They may even waive such cross-examination altogether. The objective of the cross-examination is to elicit information which will be favorable to the accused, or to discredit the witness by exposing him or her as somebody who lied or who have testified to deliberately favor the prosecution and pin down the accused - thus, there was bias against the truth.
So let us move on to Article 3 in the coming days ahead.
