Reason and Concern

By Ronquillo C. Tolentino

Quality Not Quantity

The prosecution panel earlier reported that it shall present 100 witnesses against Chief Justice Renato Corona in the Senate impeachment court. For the articles on impeachment for betrayal of public trust, culpable violations of the Constitution and graft, the prosecution initially announced that it shall have 300 documents to be presented.

The lawyers that the prosecution panel are, they are fully aware that witnesses should be more of quality than quantity. And the documents should be more of substance. It does not require the prosecution panel to know these. If prosecution panel pretends not to know, it would not be amiss that a person would tell them, in the manner that Sherlock Holmes did to Watson when he said, thus: “Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary.”

Senator Judge Joker Arroyo, reacting to the prosecution panel’s announcement on the number of witnesses it shall present, commented in an interview. The defense asked whether it is necessary for the prosecution to have 100 witnesses to be able to remove Corona from office. He answered, “at the rate the trial is moving, the impeachment trial may not be finished before the end of 2012”.

Fair enough that, as I write this column, the prosecution panel members are making a re-study of their early proposals on the number of witnesses and documents to be presented. And they should. For it is not always that there are impeachment cases similar to the too sensational impeachment case against Chief Justice Corona.

SOPA

February comes too suddenly. It shall then be fifteen months before the May 2013 elections. At this time, provincial gover-nors throughout the country are preparing for or had already delivered their respective state of the province addresses.

Section 465,(b)(iii) of the local Government Code of l991 (.R.A. No. 7160), provides for the provincial governor to “ present the program of government and propose policies and projects for consideration of the sangguniang panlalawigan at the opening of the regular session of the sangguniang panlalawigan every calendar year and as often as may be deemed necessary as the general welfarte of the inhabitants and the needs of the provincial government may require.”

In Aklan, Governor Carlito S. Marquez shall deliver his state of the province address on February 8,2012. Aklan is now a first class province, It has achieved being a billionaire province under his administration. /MP