📷: Atty. Kristine Ferrer
by Diego Morra
When Camille Saint Saens wrote the fantasy burlesque “La Carnaval des animaux” in 1886 after a middling concert tour in Germany, he said doing it was “mais c’est si amusant,” or such fun, even as he banned any public performance of his work. Watching the Aug. 12 proceedings of the Senate trial of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, particularly the performance lawyer Atty. Kristine Ferrer, one is tempted to be more than amused; in fact, one might suddenly be gifted with synesthesia as the lines delivered by Ferrer not only turned the venue verdant, Sara’s bloodbath color, but swamped it with discordant notes and syncopated arguments in vivid color.
It seems the Saint-Saens musical suite was most appropriate as the Sara defense copied its 14 movements, summoning the lion, elephants, foxes, cats, fish, tortoises, cuckoos, chickens, swans, owls, marmots, worms, donkeys, iguanas, moles, beavers, white swans, giraffes, kangaroos, rabbits, turtles and hummingbirds to hear the music of Sara’s legal opus. Beyond the Senate are the hungry ears of the Sara troll orchestra, seeking to immediately segue into their threepenny opera in cyberland, the lyrics meant to deceive and create pander to the Duterte truth.
When Ferrer’s attention was called for her butting in as COA auditor and witness Xylene del Campo answer her query, described as misleading, the defense counsel shot back that “misleading questions are allowed,” forcing lawyers in the gallery and the in the prosecution panel to roar with laughter. Prosecution counsel Lorna Patajo Kapunan couldn’t believe he ears as Ferrer insisted that misleading questions are allowed on cross-examination. This is as basic as ABC. Misleading questions are disallowed. To compound the matter, the Carnival went into social media as the defense lead counsel, Atty. Sheila Sison, slammed the comment on the matter of misleading statements posted by private prosecutor Atty. Amando Virgil Ligutan, the nemesis of lawyers Narvasa and Vinluan.
Sison insisted Ligutan should be sanctioned for disrespecting Ferrer and urged that her adversary be disciplined. Ligutan called the Sison plea a non-starter as he made a general statement on a rudimentary matter of procedure. It was not directed at Ferrer and no name was ever mentioned in the comment. The comment, by any means, was irrelevant to the trial and a side issue raised for no other reason but to pander to the obsession of Duterte zealots about victimhood. Ferrer’s retort to Kapunan was wrong and Sison’s plea was doubly wrong. There are no potentates in the impeachment trial who would demand respect; lawyers must earn respect.
Citizens watching the proceedings could not believe that defense was deaf and blind, just as their principal is deaf and blind to objective truth and, like wazzocks, would insist that Ferrer was talking about leading questions even as the videos showed she screamed misleading questions are allowed. There must be a kernel of truth in the adage that even in death, lawyers still lie. The lion that conducted the Saint-Saens piece must have heard the defense’s pompous declaration and couid not believe his ears. The animals that participated in the command performance of The Carnival must have hooted, hissed and howled. The walls have ears, too, and they heard that Ferrer said msleading questions were allowed. Yet, the Duterte camp has selective hearing, selective memory and selected facts. Thus, “accessorium principale sequitur,” or the accessory follows the principal.
It is not only in the impeachment trial that this maxim holds. In their feckless attempt to make the wrong right, the Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio camp also petitioned the courts to dump the three grave threat cases lodged against Sara, arguing that by pursuing the case, all other impeachable officers could be sued for grave threats. Implicit in the argument is that Sara should not be harassed with nuisance suits since she enjoys some sort of immunity. They must have read Sara’s version of the Philippine Constitution and the statutes governing immunity. The audience members of The Carnival of the Animals must have laughed themselves hoarse on this one. Not only risible, the suit is terrible.
Yet, the drama the Sara defense panel wished to foist on the impeachment court should also be accompanied by “Fortuna Emperatrix Mundi,” the famous movement of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” With full social media orchestra backing, Sara’s pompous legal arguments should have entertained more people seeking relief from the floods, earthquakes the man-made disasters that grip our benighted land. However, they have been denied the entertainment and circular arguments running widdershins and not hitting sympathetic ears.
The defense panel can’t help it. The highly-paid lawyers pander to an audience of one—Sara— she who was responsible for the mysteriously lost P612.5-million public money. The one who “paid off” the chichirya informers, and sought to organize up to 975,000 urban poor elements in 2022 to support her presidential run in 2028 (Sara claimed the divine has groomed her to sit on the throne), go on a spree of Christmas parties funded by her “confidential fund” (CF) and touch base with senior citizens, people with disabilities (PWDs), DepEd partners and organizations of TNVS drivers and operators and barangay leaders in Tondo and Batasan Hills. Well, the eagle has landed. Right smack into a minefield. That’s what you get when you hoist your own petard.#
