Real issues

Before taking a stand on the Corona impeachment case which is now obviously the subject of trial by publicity, it would be good for citizens of this country to at least have some basic knowledge and understanding of certain concepts and principles involved in the controversy.

First of all, let us not lose sight of the division of the power of government into three distinct classes, the legislative, executive and judicial. The current happenings reveal that there seems to be an interplay or clash of powers among the three main co-ordinate departments of our government. Hence a definition of the legislative, executive and judicial power is necessary.

Legislative power is essentially the authority under the Constitution to make written enactments governing the relations of people among themselves or between them and the government and its agencies (Government of the Phil. vs. Springer, 50 Phil. 259). The legislative function is primarily the determination of a policy and its promulgation as a defined and binding rule of conduct (Occena vs. Comelec 95 SCRA 755).

Executive power on the other hand is the power to administer the laws or to carry them into practical operation and to enforce their due observance (Black, Constitutional Law 8th ed. P 183. Laws here include the Constitution, the statutes enacted by Congress, the PDs issued under the 1973 Constitution not expressly repealed, Executive Orders and Decisions of Courts (De Leon, The New Philippine Constitution, p. 280).

Judicial power is the power to interpret and apply the laws to contests or disputes concerning legally recognized rights or duties between the State and private persons, or between individual litigants in cases properly brought before the judicial tribunals (Black Const. Law 2nd ed. P. 82). As provided by Section 1 par. 2 of the 1987 Constitution, this power includes (1) the settlement of actual controversies involving rights legally demandable and enforceable; (2) the determination whether there has been grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the government.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, one branch of the government cannot, as a rule, encroach upon or perform the primary function of the other branches. Officials of one branch cannot meddle, interfere with, impose upon or dictate how the other branches should perform their jobs. Basically, this means that within their respective spheres, each department of government is supreme and have the final say on their actions. The reason for this separation of powers is to avoid arbitrary or tyrannical rule if one body exercises all or most of the governmental powers (Am. Jur. 280).

But while the three branches are supposed to be co-equal and independent of each other, the distribution of power under the Constitution apparently makes other branches more powerful than the others. It is even said that the judiciary is the weakest among the three for it does not have the power of the “purse” of Congress and the power of the “force” of the President or the Chief Executive. To maintain the balance of power, or to re-establish it if is disturbed, a system of checks and balances is also observed alongside with the doctrine of separation of powers.

Thus each branch of the government has been equipped with certain powers to check the other branches. In this particular impeachment case, being primarily invoked is the Congressional power to impeach the members of the Supreme Court particularly its Chief Justice, where the Lower House is given the exclusive power to initiate the impeachment complaint and the Senate the exclusive power to try and decide it (Article XI, Section 2).

Two aspects of the impeachment complaint filed by 188 members of the Lower House render it vulnerable to attack or open to question and may even result in the unsuccessful exercise of this power. They also trigger the possible invocation by the SC of its own power under the principle of checks and balances  to determine whether a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction has been committed by Congress.

The first is the suspicious haste in its filing. The common perception is that the signing of the complaint was railroaded which is characteristic of partisan political moves. Admittedly, not all the signatories have completely read and understood what they signed; thus rendering the required “verification” of the complaint defective.

The second are the eight grounds for impeachment. Only two of these grounds  the failure to disclose to the public the SALN of Corona, and his failure and refusal to account for the Judiciary Development Fund and Special Allowance for Judiciary collections  can be considered as his own acts. The other six  for alleged bias to the past administration, flip flopping, wanton arbitrariness, partiality, resurrecting dead cases and violating the principle of separation of powers  refer to the actions of the SC itself as a collegial body where Corona coincidentally concurred with the majority. Obviously these acts cannot be considered as his own acts. So the question here is: are the grounds of impeachment strong enough to convict? Is there no violation of separation of powers here?

Unquestionably, impeachment is a political process initiated in the lower house and tried by the Senate. At this stage, the prosecutors and other lawyers believe that the Senate alone has the exclusive authority to rule on any issue regarding the Corona impeachment. Hence they say that the SC has no jurisdiction to entertain the four petitions questioning the blitzkrieg filing of the complaint by the Lower House. Presumably following this theory, the counsels of Corona have raised the same issue in the Senate by way of affirmative defenses and asked the Senate to rule on them. Now, if the Senate rules in favor of Corona and dismisses the complaint, are the prosecutors without recourse any more if they believe the Senate committed grave abuse of discretion? Following their theory, they cannot question that ruling anymore.

But another school of thought say that while “courts have no authority to review the acts of co-ordinate departments of government within their respective spheres, they have jurisdiction to determine whether any department has acted within its constitutional sphere (McCully vs State, 46 L.R.A. 567). Which of these two schools of thought do you believe is correct?

These are the burning issues that the people should consider and ponder upon. –Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star)

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E-mail: jcson@pldtdsl.net