{"id":203833,"date":"2012-05-31T01:19:20","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T17:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/?p=203833"},"modified":"2016-11-01T12:48:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T04:48:27","slug":"enrile-cites-defenses-blunders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/203833\/enrile-cites-defenses-blunders","title":{"rendered":"Enrile cites defense\u2019s blunders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. SENATE POOL<\/p><\/div>\n

Chief Justice Renato Corona was convicted not because of the prosecutorial skills of his accusers but the blunders committed by his lawyers.<\/p>\n

In separate interviews, senators listed the following errors: The presentation of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales as a hostile witness; the \u201cstaged\u201d walkout of Corona that incurred the ire of senator-judges; the conditions that Corona imposed on his accusers after his first offer of a waiver; and, the discussion of the sale of the Basa-Guidote Enterprises Inc. (BGEI) shares worth P34.7 million to Corona\u2019s daughter Carla Castillo for P28,000.<\/p>\n

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile smirked when asked whether the House prosecutors brought about the \u201cguilty\u201d vote of 20 senator-judges against Corona.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the judges who were good, isn\u2019t it?\u201d he insisted in jest in an ambush interview.<\/p>\n

Senators noted that until Representative Niel Tupas, the lead House prosecutor, rested his case after presenting evidence on three articles against Corona, his panel had very weak evidence against the Chief Justice.<\/p>\n

They also chastised the prosecution for relying on spurious sources, including a \u201clittle lady\u201d who was said to have provided evidence on Corona\u2019s bank deposits and photocopies of dollar transactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, the prosecution started with no case. They just produced evidence as the trial went along. Even Representative (Rodolfo) Fari\u00f1as admitted in open court that he did not sign the impeachment complaint because it was defective,\u201d recalled Senator Jinggoy Estrada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Ombudsman testified, the fire went out of control,\u201d Enrile remarked.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plan backfired <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMy suspicion was that the lawyers wanted Morales to disprove the news reports that she did not have evidence on the Chief Justice\u2019s $10M in bank deposits. But the plan backfired,\u201d said Senator Edgardo Angara.<\/p>\n

Angara said Morales had many documents provided by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to prove that the deposits were not declared in Corona\u2019s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), Angara said.<\/p>\n

Senator Panfilo Lacson called Morales\u2019 appearance in the impeachment trial \u201ca big mistake, a big blunder on the part of the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHad the Ombudsman not appeared, the Chief Justice might have been acquitted. Remember that until then, the prosecution panel carried the heavy burden on its shoulders of hyping up evidence that did not live up to the real facts like the dud about the Chief Justice\u2019s 45 properties,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

During her testimony, Morales produced documents which she said came from the AMLC tracing the dollar time deposits entered into by Corona in five banks amounting to $10 million to $12 million from 2004 to early 2012.<\/p>\n

The defense held that the supposed AMLC documents were never authenticated and had no probative value. Experts said that the so-called \u201ctransactional balance\u201d was concocted by Morales and the Commission on Audit.<\/p>\n

Enrile said Morales \u201cpresented a report based on documents so detailed\u2014a myriad of details!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo mind, even Einstein, can invent the details covered by those transactions. A legal mind or a financial mind could not concoct or invent the contents of those documents and the numbers and the transactions that happened over a period of eight years,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In explaining his guilty verdict on Tuesday, Enrile made it clear that Corona \u201cdoes not stand accused of having amassed any ill-gotten wealth before this impeachment court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damaging walkout<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angara pointed out that Corona inadvertently painted himself into a corner by revealing that he actually had $2.4 million and P80.7 million in banks.<\/p>\n

Corona\u2019s walkout right after his first appearance spoiled whatever gains he earned that day. \u201cEveryone had this fear of a unanimous vote for conviction after he did that,\u201d Lacson said.<\/p>\n

Lacson added that senators were initially elated at Corona\u2019s offer of a waiver on his deposits during his initial appearance. However, the subsequent challenge to sign a similar waiver given to Senator Franklin Drilon and the 188 congressmen who signed the impeachment complaint turned them off. \u201cThe patina of sincerity collapsed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Enrile said Corona was also damaged by the testimony of a former sheriff who admitted supervising an auction where Corona\u2019s daughter bought 90 percent of BGEI shares worth millions for only P28,000. \u201cTo me, that was an unjust enrichment,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. cited the critical role that media played in the conviction of Corona.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, the media pushed us, pushed the Senate, pushed the public, and the defense as well, to confront all of the issues that were brought out in the course of the investigation and the court trial and faced them up to it,\u201d Belmonte said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the media was looking at them also made them (senator-judges) decisive, their decisions clear, not fuzzy, and the whole process has been resolved in a clear, clean way in accordance with our Constitution and our laws, that is in effect a changing event,\u201d he said. With a report from Cynthia D. Balana<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chief Justice Renato Corona was convicted not because of the prosecutorial skills of his accusers but the blunders committed by his lawyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":202357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[481,36,37],"tags":[49,91,52,25597,512,206124],"byline":[812],"source":[206078],"column":[],"editor":[],"videographer":[],"position":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEnrile cites defense\u2019s blunders | Inquirer 黑料社<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chief Justice Renato Corona was convicted not because of the prosecutorial skills of his accusers but the blunders committed by his lawyers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/203833\/enrile-cites-defenses-blunders\" \/>\n<meta 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