House prosecutors are preparing to request the Senate, which will sit as an impeachment court at a still undefined time, to subpoena the bank records of Vice President Sara Duterte. While the prosecutors claim that their case against Duterte is “solid” without the bank records, going this route is banking on historical chances because it’s in this way that former chief justice Renato Corona was ousted.
“If we can secure the Vice President’s financial records, it will be the icing on the cake—a definitive, undeniable piece of evidence that will speak for itself, supporting several of the Articles of Impeachment,” said House Assistant Majority Leader Pammy Zamora of Taguig City, who is not part of the prosecution team herself, but a member of the impeachment secretariat.
The House of Representatives prepared seven articles of impeachment, the bank records mostly concern Article 4:
- Article 1: Culpable violation of the Constitution and other high crimes for her threat that if she is killed, she had also arranged to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and presidential cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
- Article 2: Betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption for anomalous disbursement of a total of P612 million confidential funds both as vice president and former education secretary. Under this allegation would be the House inquiry findings of names on the receipts not having birth records, or having quirky names patterned after famous Filipino snacks like Piattos, indicating they were ghost recipients.
- Article 3: Betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption for disbursing monetary gifts to education officials, as testified to by a career bureaucrat in the department Gloria Jumamil Mercado.
- Article 4: Culpable violation of the Constitution for allegedly amassing unexplained wealth and failing to disclose all properties in her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs). According to the articles of impeachment, Duterte’s net worth in 2007 was P13.8 million and grew to P44.8 million in 2017. “Her total net worth as indicated in these SALNs is already manifestly disproportionate to the income she was earning as an elected official,” said the prosecution.
- Article 5: High crimes for alleged conspiracy to commit murder over her supposed involvement in her father’s Davao Death Squad or DDS. The DDS killings are under investigation at the International Criminal Court. ICC witness and self-confessed hitman Arturo Lascañas said Sara Duterte would also give clearances on kills, just like her father, former Davao city mayor and president Rodrigo Duterte, did.
- Article 6: Betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution for allegedly destabilizing the Marcos presidency through statements that “actively sowed unrest and /or attacked the authority of the current administration and the President.”
- Article 7: Betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, and graft and corruption “for totality of respondent’s conduct as vice president.”
While it is based on legal rules, an impeachment trial does not follow the same strict standards and definitions as in a criminal or even a civil trial. It is mostly a political practice, put there in the Constitution so Filipinos have a way to remove an elected official who betrayed their trust. That is why it’s the elected officials – representatives and senators – who will impeach (done by the House, which will convene as prosecutors later), and possibly oust (done by the Senate, which will convene as judges.)
Because impeachments are rare, “we do not have guidance from courts on the conclusive meaning” of what constitutes betrayal of public trust or even culpable violation of the Constitution, says the University of the Philippines College of Law in a primer released for Duterte’s impeachment.
Our best reference as a nation would be Corona, who is the first ever official removed from office via impeachment. Former president Joseph Estrada was impeached by the House, but his Senate trial to oust him reached an impasse at a dramatic vote to open envelopes of supposed damning evidence of billions worth of deposits. When the “no” votes won at the Senate, the “yes” voters walked out of the hall, and it prompted a second people power revolution that finally ousted him from office.
Corona was the one ousted by the Senate sitting as an impeachment court, voting 20-3 to convict the former chief justice of betraying public trust and committing culpable violation of public trust for failure to declare dollar accounts in his SALN.
In Corona’s trial, the Senate court ordered the release of his bank records, but not without many oppositions and discussions.
Duterte has shrugged off her impeachment, saying in a press conference: “Mas masakit pa ang maiwan ng boyfriend o girlfriend kaysa ma-impeach ka sa House of Representatives.“ (It’s more painful to be left by your boyfriend or girlfriend than to be impeached by the House of Representatives.)
Exemption of bank secrecy
Manila 3rd district representative Joel Chua, one of the prosecutors, said they will request the Senate the same for Duterte – a subpoena on her bank records, citing an exemption under the bank secrecy law or RA 1405.
Section 2 of the law says all deposits with banks are confidential “except upon written permission of the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation.”
Chua said they eye it to strengthen their SALN violation allegation under Article 4. “That is the call of the Senate, of the Senate President, sa amin naman po, gagawin lang namin yung sa tingin namin ay tama base on legal, ito naman po talaga ay ginagawa hindi laman sa impeachment maski naman sa regular court kasi ang impeachment ang isa lamang sa mga exemption sa Bank Secrecy Law,” said Chua at a press conference on Monday, February 10.
(For us, we’ll just do what we think is right based on legal grounds, and this is done not only during impeachment cases but even in regular courts because impeachment is just one of the exemptions under the Bank secrecy law.)
Zamora claims they have “already connected the dots” and bank records
“will simply validate and confirm what the documents and testimonies have already revealed,” she said in a press statement.
“The question is simple: if there is nothing to hide, why resist transparency? The Bank Secrecy Law does not apply in impeachment cases, and we trust that the Senate, when it convenes, will see the necessity of making these records available,” Zamora said. – Rappler.com