Leave PAL officials alone, defense panel asks court
THE defense team on Thursday strongly opposed a request of the House prosecution panel to subpoena officials from the flag-carrier Philippine Air Lines (PAL) to testify on the foreign travels of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.
In a six-page motion submitted to the Senate impeachment court, Corona’s lawyers said that the request of the prosecutors did not cover Article III of the verified impeachment complaints against the country’s top magistrate.
The House prosecution team had asked the impeachment court to subpoena the PAL officials for them to bring and testify on records pertaining to PAL Platinum Card No. A752, purportedly
under the name of Corona, and PAL Platinum Card No. A753, purportedly under the name of his wife, Cristina.
Among the PAL officials requested to be subpoenaed included Enrique Javier, the vice president for sales; and Ria Carrion Domingo, the vice president for product loyalty marketing.
Article III alleged that the “respondent committed culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayed the public trust by failing to meet and observe the stringent standards under Article VIII, Section 7 ( 3) of the Constitution that provides that a member of the judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence.”
Some of the allegations under Article III included the Supreme Court’s flip-flopping in final and executory cases, creating an excessive entanglement with former President and now Rep. Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga province through her appointment of Corona’s wife to office and discussing with litigants cases pending before the High Tribunal.
But the defense panel said that Article III of the impeachment com- plaint did not in any way mention a PAL Platinum Card in the name of the Corona couple, their patronage of PAL, any acts or circumstances pertaining to the procurement of such card or any benefits or privileges that the Coronas obtained from the card.
“The only reference to PAL deals with the alleged flip-flopping decision of the SC in the Fasap’s [ Flight Attendants and Stewardesses Association of the Philippines] case, allegedly on account of letters written by Estelito Mendoza to the Supreme Court,” the defense stated in its motion.
The defense counsels, represented by lawyers Jose Roy and Dennis Manalo, maintained that there are no allegations in the complaint regarding any benefits that Corona obtained