A decent law student would have been very much excited at this point in Philippine History. After all, impeachment trial has only happened twice including the one being carried now subjecting the Chief Magistrate of the Supreme Court as the respondent. Naturally, the legal community are all eyes and ears to the proceedings being carried out in the Senate. Lawyers, law professors and law students of several legal institutions are closely following the latest developments in the impeachment trial. News programs since before the proceedings started both on free and cable tv, radio programs and internet have constantly engaged the expertise and brilliance of several legal luminaries to explain on a simpler note the rather complicated legal concepts involve in the impeachment trial.
Amongst the often sought legal voices regularly appearing in various media programs are Prof. Victoria Avena, Dean Raul Pangalangan, Dean Tony La Vina and Dean Pacifico Agabin. Prof. Victoria Avena has been particularly eloquent and impressive (of course expected from a UP Law faculty) in explaining to the public the nitty gritty of the legal procedures involve. Prof. Avena’s TV appearances have been receiving positive receptions and even prompted a facebook based fan club. Recorded versions of her interviews and opinions clogged facebook walls, twitter timelines and other social networking sites of both members of the legal community and not.
Other than law professors giving their take on matters involved in the impeachment proceedings, familiar faces both in the defence and prosecution panel are also visible. The lead counsel for the defence, retired Justice Cuevas used to teach in UP Law. On top of that, several of the defence counsel including Prof. Salvador Tranquil and their spokesperson Prof. Karen Jimeno are active UP Law professors. Some students even opined that watching the impeachment updates from time to time is like attending classes in the Hallowed halls of Malcolm.
As if mass Media bombardments of whatever impeachment related updates are not enough, facebook walls and twitter timelines are as well excessively littered with every updates available. Everyone of course has their own take on the matter. Opinions are as many as the updates streaming. There are those who throw no caution and say whatever they want to without regard to any legal or even logical basis so long as they contribute to the long line of opinions. Many however are critically and rationally assessing any new developments utilizing several political and legal paradigms. Based on the recent tweets and shout outs from friends, many are quite disappointed at how the prosecution is handling its case. One comment even mentioned that “the state should invoke its right to a competent counsel” evidently referring to the general outlook that the prosecution panel are quite no match to the professionally competent streak of lawyers of Chief Justice Corona’s defence.
Many are claiming, this author included, that the prosecution has to do much much better to present its case and persuade the Senate towards deciding in their favour especially comparing to the well organized and competent defence team.
Danjun Lucas
Blog Entry 5
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