Price of secrecy

Price of secrecy | Daily Tribune

Okay, lawyers are trained to fight for every square inch of the battlefield. They challenge evidence, question procedure and object whenever the rules permit. To do otherwise is to be derelict.

Courts, after all, are governed by the rules of evidence, and judges are expected to insulate themselves from public opinion in cases pending before them.

Not so the senator-judges of the impeachment court. Whether they admit it or not, they are influenced by public opinion and by the political consequences of any judgment they render.

Appearances and perceptions shape that court of public opinion. The two often move together. And just as often, they part ways.

Illustrative of this point is the looming fight over the Vice President’s tax and bank records, which the impeachment court has subpoenaed and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered released.

Sara’s lawyers have every right to oppose requests they believe are legally flawed or constitutionally infirm.

Didn’t Senate President Chiz Escudero, who presides over the impeachment court, himself say that the records can still be challenged as to their admissibility?

But there comes a point when an aggressive legal strategy begins to look, fairly or unfairly, less like a defense of due process than an effort to prevent scrutiny itself.

Once that impression takes hold, the debate changes. People stop asking what the documents might actually contain. They begin asking why there is such determination to keep them from being seen.

Philippine politics has seen this script before. Many Filipinos still remember the “second envelope” during the impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada.

The issue eventually became less about what was inside the envelope than about the Senate’s refusal to open it. For many, that single vote created the impression that the proceedings had ceased to be an honest search for the truth.

Public opinion shifted with remarkable speed, leading to Estrada’s resignation after key institutions, including the military and police, withdrew their support from his administration.

Ironically, when the envelope was eventually opened after Estrada’s ouster, it proved to be much ado over nothing.

The documents did not establish that Estrada owned the controversial Jose Velarde account. The political damage, however, had already been done. The perception created by keeping the envelope sealed ultimately proved more consequential than what was actually inside it.

Still, this Contrarian is not stretching the comparison too far. Estrada’s impeachment and the proceedings involving Duterte arise from different facts, different laws, and different legal questions.

The lesson, however, remains relevant.

People often react more strongly to the appearance of concealment than to the information eventually disclosed. Once the public concludes that records are being kept out of sight, suspicion fills the space where facts should be.

Winning a procedural fight can carry a political cost.

The public is rarely interested in the technical language of motions and objections. It notices something far simpler: who appears willing to let the truth be tested, and who appears determined to keep it behind closed doors or in sealed envelopes.