Every Filipino conscious of participative citizenship must regard the Sara Duterte impeachment trial of supreme national rank. The merits of the trial cut across an issue essential to nation building: accountability.
Regrettably, we accord accountability with a low premium. Public officials stealing government money is a norm. We know it happens but we regard it as ordinary and out of our control. It must thus be emphasized that impeachment is something that can be eaten by the poor: accounting for stolen money results in more public funds to benefit the poor.
The tweet of Bong Go that it cannot be eaten is preposterously false and deadens good citizenship. Anybody who says that is evil.
The counter narratives of those loyal to Sara are distorting that accountability principle of impeachment, foremost among who are her family’s DDS troll battalions. Imee Marcos re-echoed it in the Senate that the Sara impeachment is not about accountability but succession – preventing Sara from the presidency in 2028.
There is a kernel of truth to it – succession is not for Sara if she will be incriminated of the evidence. Accountability is also about perpetual disqualification from public office. It applied to Renato Corona’s failure to declare his assets. Why should it not apply to Sara Duterte?
It appears now that the Dutertes have all the fortune to afford lawyers known for their celebrity cases (meaning: excessive lawyer’s fees). That can mean two things. First, she sees the need to be defended well because the evidence is highly probing of Duterte integrity. For certain, the trial will open bank accounts. It is the potential scandal of the century that will be embedded in generations of memories.
Second, she sees lawyers as simply commodities that she can buy, not on the basis of legal competency.
A quick look at the background of Fortun, Narvasa and Salazar Law Office (FNS Law) drives home well that point of the second. The principal of FNS Law is Philip Sigfrid Fortun. The Asia Business Law Journal describes him as having “represented Philippine Presidents or their families in lawsuits, and was counsel for one of them in the first and only Impeachment Proceedings of a sitting President.”
In 2015, GMA News reported that Sigfrid Fortun’s acceptance fee is P20 million per case. If that is true, we can already envisage the bottomless pit of money that the Dutertes have. Remember that for the ICC case of Rodrigo Duterte, the family is not being impoverished by Nicolas Kaufman’s legal fees of P2,590,960 per month (Eu40,000). They have asked the International Criminal Court to help them cover the legal fees of the Kaufman team’s five lawyers.
Given the complexity of the Sara impeachment case, the acceptance fee can go even higher. This week, her defense team has officially entered its appearance before the Senate impeachment court. There are 16 lawyers, with about four of that coming from her government offices (Michael Wesley Poa, Reynold Munsayac, et al). Possibly about 12 come from the Fortun law office. With that battery of lawyers from FNS Law, a P20-million acceptance fee may be peanuts.
There are two Narvasas in the Fortun defense team. Gregorio Narvasa and Carlo Joaquin Narvasa are descendants of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Andres Narvasa who, in November 2000, became counsel for Joseph Estrada in his Senate impeachment trial.
Alas, Sigfrid Fortun is not all about legal glamour and defense skills. His record as impeachment defense for Estrada did not result in victory. The trial, as we recall, was aborted without reaching the verdict stage.
The only similarity perhaps was the exposed partisanship of 11 senators for Estrada. Some of these senators later had floundering careers and were rejected by voters in subsequent elections. The fate of the Estrada partisans Tessie Aquino Oreta, Nikki Coseteng, Gringo Honasan, Ramon Revilla Sr. and Robert Jaworski should be instructive to the present crop of senators. That is written in granite.
A lawyer had opined in social media a warning about Fortun. The lawyer has had a record of leaving his clients in mid-air when he sees potential defeat.
In August 2014, Sigfrid Fortun and his team of lawyers defending the sensational Ampatuan Massacre withdrew as counsels to the case. By then, they had been defending the principal suspects in the Ampatuan family for five years. They were counsels for Andal Ampatuan Sr., Zaldy Ampatuan and Andal Ampatuan Jr. In five long years, how much were they totally paid by the Ampatuans?
Fortun cited as reason for his withdrawal a “conflict of interest among his clients.” None among his high profile clients were eventually acquitted.
As for the 18 senators, they should be effectively known from hereon as Sara Duterte’s lawyers. The electorate will deal with them in the future as traitors to their oaths to “defend and support the Constitution.” They will suffer the fate of Tessie Aquino Oreta.
For what price, however? Betray the Constitution but laugh your way to the bank? With the fabled Duterte treasure chest, it is now in the minds of our countrymen that the 18 senators may have received financial rewards from the Dutertes to vote to remand the articles of impeachment to the House. The 18 can deny to high heavens, but nothing can stop the Filipino public from thinking ill of them.
16 + 18 is not formidable. It can end up 0.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
