MANILA, Philippines (2nd UPDATE) - Using the dissenting opinion of a Supreme Court magistrate, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima alleged Chief Justice Renato Corona may have had a hand in pushing the high court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s travel restraint issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

On day 22 of the impeachment trial, Presiding Judge Juan Ponce Enrile asked her several times if the TRO was a decision of the whole court. “Is there an instance when respondent acted alone in issuing a process or order of the SC?”

De Lima said: “There was no resolution coming from the SC which was issued alone by [Corona] but if I may refer you to the disclosures of [Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno], there is one or couple of points there worth looking into.”

By a vote of 8-5 last November 15, the high court decided to issue a TRO on the watch list order against Arroyo and her husband, Mike.

Arroyo, in a wheelchair, arrived at the airport later that day armed with the order from the SC. Per instructions from de Lima, however, immigration officials blocked Arroyo, who was then bound for Singapore, the first stop in her medical trip.

In a resolution on November 29, the high court, by a vote of 7-6, upheld its TRO.

In a dissenting opinion, however, Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, claimed the November 29 resolution did not reflect what really took place during the full court meeting.

Sereno, the first appointee of President Benigno Aquino to the SC, alleged that Corona corrected the draft TRO, which Justice Presbitero Velasco later incorporated in the November 29 resolution. Velasco is the ponente or author of the case.

Sereno said Corona also instructed SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez to mislead the public by saying the TRO was still in effect even if Arroyo was not able to comply with the conditions attached to it.

Is Cabinet member equal to SC?

De Lima was called to the witness stand to provide the historical background leading to the allegation of the prosecution in Article 7. This article alleges that Corona “supposedly betrayed the public trust through his partiality in granting a temporary restraining order in favor of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo in order to give them an opportunity to escape prosecution and to frustrate the ends of justice, and in distorting the Supreme Court decision on the effectivity of the TRO in view of a clear failure to comply with the conditions of the Supreme Court’s own TRO.”

De Lima said she blocked Arroyo’s travel abroad since there was no immediate need for it. She also said Arroyo was a flight risk considering that she had pending electoral sabotage cases before the DOJ.

Defense counsel Serafin Cuevas said, however, that de Lima was already attacking a decision of the SC.

He said that he was also once the head of the Department of Justice, but there is nowhere in the justice chief's job description that grants him or her the power to review or reverse the decision of the SC.

“Do you know of any one branch that could go as deep as to examining the decisions of the SC,” Cuevas asked de Lima. She said: “Only the SC.”

He asked de Lima if there are Cabinet members higher than the SC. She said there is none but they are the alter-egos of the President, and that the executive branch is co-equal to the judiciary.

Cuevas then asked: “Why could there be a dispute on the validity of the TRO?”

De Lima said the TRO in question violates the very essence of a watch list order. She said the TRO would have already answered the main question of whether or not Arroyo should be allowed to leave for abroad.

She said they were never given the chance by the SC to argue against the TRO.

Cuevas then asked if de Lima knows that the TRO was not issued solely by Corona. De Lima said: “He concurred, he’s one of the 8.”

Conspiracy

Cuevas then asked if there was a desire on the part of the SC to allow Arroyo to flee from her liabilities. She agreed basing on “my own observation, and based on the attendant facts, circumstances, pleadings, revelations in the dissent…”

He then asked if there was conspiracy on the part of the magistrates to issue the TRO. De Lima only said: “They issued the questionable TRO, and the CJ is only one vote of course, but he has other functions, such as the primus inter pares…”

Cuevas then said that the TRO would not have come into effect without the other signatures of the other justices.

“So if there’s a TRO, the responsibility should be shouldered by all the signatories?” Cuevas asked.

De Lima then said: “If only on the voting, with respect to the propriety of the TRO, with the 8 concurring…then yes.”

Impeachable offense

During the hearing, senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano also asked prosecutor Raul Daza the difference between an erroneous decision and an irregular one leading to an impeachable offense.
He said that while everyone wants to hold accountable Arroyo, the prosecution must be able “to draw the line.”

He explained that the SC is a collegial body and that the decision of the chief magistrate is just one vote.

Cayetano likened the issue to the decision of the impeachment court regarding the quashing of the testimony of the Philippine Airlines official on Tuesday.

“We are collegial [in the decision]…we may have agreed or not…but do you file a case against the Senate President or the Senate? Are you saying there’s a conspiracy and the leader of the conspiracy is the Chief Justice?”

Daza said: “Pwedeng yung iba rin, pero ang nililitis natin dito ay ang Chief Justice.” He said they will prove that Corona had a big role in the SC’s issuance of the TRO.

Not Corona's decision: defense

The defense panel, meantime, noted that the direct examination of de Lima showed that the decision to restrain the effectivity of the watch list order against Mrs. Arroyo was a collegial decision of the court, and not an individual decision of Corona.

Defense spokesman Tranquil Salvador said, “Pinatotohanan ng ating secretary ang katanungan ng lead counsel na sinuman ang nagdedesisyon...nangangahulugan ba ang nag issue ng TRO ay si CJ lang? Ang sagot ay hinde. Umaangat ang katotohanan na the SC acts collegially and not individually.”

Spokeswoman Karen Jimeno noted de Lima’s testimony had a lot of hearsay statements since she was only quoting from the dissenting opinion and was not present during the court’s deliberations.

”Di niya rin alam kung ano nangyari. Mahirap magrely sa dissenting opinion, hearsay lang ang sinasabi ni Secretary de Lima sa korte. Di niya alam ang sirkumstansiya nung pinagusapan," she said.

Salvador said the SC has the power to issue ex-parte restraining orders that require no prior hearing. -- with a report from RG Cruz, ABS-CBN News