“The Chief Justice will face all these complaints. Let’s just wait for his reply,” Marquez told reporters in a chance interview at the Diamond Hotel after attending the Christmas party of Manila regional trial court judges.
“We respect the Senate as an impeachment court, as a separate institution. We have faith in the Senate president,” Marquez stressed, adding that Corona is unfazed by the move of the House of Representatives to impeach him.
“He continues to perform his duties. The other justices also continue to perform their mandate,” Marquez said.
He called the allegations in the Articles of Impeachment “baseless and unsubstantiated” and “old issues that were just rehashed.”
“If you have read the complaint, and I urge all of you to do so, any lawyer worth his salt will have difficulty finding sustainable charges worthy of a conviction in an impeachment proceeding,” Marquez told the judges in a speech.
In an interview later, he cited as an example the third article in the impeachment complaint regarding the Chief Justice’s alleged “excessive entanglement” with former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as shown by the appointment of his wife, Cristina Corona, to public office.
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