raissa robles CJ Corona swore into office three senator-judges; GMA swore in one

raissa robles CJ Corona swore into office three senator-judges; GMA swore in one

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Again, it wasn’t I who found out about Santiago’s close relations with Corona, with Senate Impeachment Court presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile and with former Senator Francisco Tatad.

Tatad is one of Corona’s closest friends and allies who is closely working with Corona’s defense lawyers and who openly castigated Senator-judge Franklin Drilon for being biased against Corona.

It was a commenter on my blog named Sui Generis correctly pointed out that Tatad was Senator-judge Miriam Santiago’s vice-presidential running mate when she lost the presidency to Fidel Ramos in 1992.

Here is Sui Generis’ take on Senator-judge Santiago:

In 1969, she was recruited by then Secretary of Justice Juan Ponce Enrile to be his Special Assistant. Part of her job was drafting speeches on law and justice for President Marcos.

Her most sensitive assignment as special assistant to Enrile had been to prepare a confidential memorandum for President Marcos on the advisability of declaring martial law. She cooperated with Marcos after the declaration.

When she ran for President in 1998, Francisco Tatad is his Vice President under her Peoples Reform Party. Tatad is now publicly supporting Corona.

On November 20, 2003 her son Alexander Robert Santiago allegedly committed suicide. He was brought to East Avenue Medical Center. However, Dr. Amy Banaag said the gunshot did not seem to have been fired at close range.

Law enforcement agencies of the government were not allowed to conduct scene of the crime investigation. She had the cadaver of her son immediately cremated, thus destroying, suppressing and concealing the very corpus delicti of the offense.

At her son’s wake in Christ the King chapel Miriam said “”I AM removing myself from politics to fulfill my promise to him.” In 2004 she again ran for Senator and won.
Whatever happened to her promise?

In 2009, A former Malacañang lawyer Nombraan Pangcoga filed a petition at (Comelec) seeking to disqualify Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago from running again as senator in the 2010 elections, citing her “insanity” , among other as ground.

A certain Efren G. Battad also filed a complaint against her on January 7, 2010, although the charges against her were dismissed by the SC the allegations are interesting and might need further investigation.

Miriam Santiago faces disbarment complaint

She won re-election as senator in 2010 and Takes Oath Before CJ Corona.
She was also elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on December 12, 2011.

She finally meet her match on February 29, 2012. My new hero, Atty. Aguirre did the unthinkable, he protested by simply covering his ear and courageously engaged the Marcos trained witch in a verbal tussle. Her BP shoot up to 190/90 while Aguirre won the hearts of many Filipino.
She is set to leave for The Hague to take oath and assume office on March 9, 2012. She requested for deferment of oath taking due to insanity, este, medical reasons.

Connect the dots…

Miriam working for Enrile during the Marcos Regime.
Tatad is the Propaganda Minister of Marcos.
Miriam and Tatad team up for the highest office.
Tatad is publicly supporting Corona.
My intuition tells me there is a conspiracy here.
No wonder Miriam is so rabid to the prosecution.

Personally, I would still give all four senator-judges the benefit of the doubt. We don’t really know yet how they will vote on CJ Corona’s case.

Besides, I still recall what Senator Bong Revilla Jr. did back in late January 2001, after his father Senator Ramon Revilla Sr. voted not to open the second envelope containing then President Joseph Estrada bank documents.

When the crowd at the Edsa People Power shrine thickened, following the walk-out by the House prosecutors over the non-opening of the envelope, Bong Revilla publicly called on his “ninong” Estrada (poltitical godfather) to resign.

The young Revilla’s last-minute gesture was not lost on a grateful populace which elected him to the Senate for the first time with 15.8 million votes – landing him on the sweet second spot of a heated electoral race that May.

Still, all four senator-judges bear close watching to see how their ties to and perception of CJ Corona would affect their own verdict of him.

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