Sereno formally allows lawyers to act on her behalf in impeach proceedings

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has formally tasked her legal team to act on her behalf in all stages of her impeachment proceedings at the House of Representatives.

Sereno's lawyers on Tuesday sent a letter to the House Committee on Justice informing the panel that Sereno has chosen to attend Wednesday's hearing for the determination of probable cause on her impeachment complaint through her legal counsel, not in person.

She also insisted on her right to counsel and cross-examine the witnesses that will be presented in the proceedings through her counsel.

The Chief Justice attached a Special Power of Attorney appointing lawyers Alexander Poblador, Dino Vivencio Tamayo, Anzen Dy, Justin Christopher Mendoza, Carla Pingul, Sandra Mae Magalang, Jayson Aguilar, Oswald Imbat, Enrico Edmundo Castelo II, Charles Richard Avila Jr. and/or Patricia Geraldez as her attorneys-in-fact.

The lawyers, Sereno said, would act for and in her name, exercise her rights and protect her interests in all stages of her impeachment proceedings before the panel.

In their letter, the lawyers insisted that Sereno had already aired her side when she submitted her Verified Answer and Verified Rejoinder for the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Lorenzo "Larry" Gadon.

"Her failure to cross-examine complainant and his witnesses through counsel, especially if prevented by the Honorable Committee, cannot amount to an admission of the charges against her," the lawyers said in the letter.

What needs explaining, though, is the "side" of Gadon who, in his Verified Reply, said he would "verify" his allegations and present evidence during the hearings, the lawyers said.

"The burden of proof in this proceeding is on the complainant, and not on the Chief Justice. That is why under the House Rules on Impeachment, the complainant should already have attached all his affidavits and documentary evidence to his complaint," they said.

For his part, Oriental Mindoro Representative Reynaldo Umali, the justice panel chair, said the committee, as a whole, will first determine if they will allow the lawyers to act for Sereno as stated in the Special Power of Attorney.

"It's a letter addressed to the committee, so we'll have to accept it, but the action of the committee is a different matter," Umali told reporters in a phone interview.

"When you talk of her presence and her participation in the proceeding, it has to be personal. How can we cross-examine the lawyers who definitely have no any personal knowledge of the matters that the members of the committee would ask of them?  It can only be drawn from the respondent herself," he added.

Umali noted that a Special Power of Attorney is needed for the purposes of legal representation, but the case is different in impeachment proceedings.

"In the impeachment proceeding, what we need are facts, and we cannot draw that from the lawyers. And definitely, the lawyers will have a way to assert our questions because they have no any personal knowledge of matters we will ask them," he said.

"Even if they do, they will always use yung lawyer-client privilege. So, it will not work e," he added.

If Sereno chooses not to attend, what will come out of the hearing, even if uncontroverted, will be the basis of the panel's report, Umali said.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez had earlier said he would bar Sereno's lawyers from attending the hearing as they were not the ones whom the House justice panel has invited. —KBK, GMA News