LAST Tuesday’s trial, only the second day in the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, it shocked the public and some members of the Prosecution Panel itself to witness Congressman-Prosecutor Elpidio Barzaga admit his team was unprepared to present evidence and witnesses for Article 1 of the Impeachment Complaint.

They were, however, ready to charge Corona under Article 2 on his failure to make public his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth that, notwithstanding, openly irked presiding Senator-Judge Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

That’s because JPE has had to cut short the trial again after ruling against pre-trial hearing, even as it didn’t help any that Defense Panel chief Serafin Cuevas also confessed it was not prepared for Article 2 but could tackle the prosecutors over Article 1.

Charge it to “birth pains,” proposed Prosecutors-Congressmen Romero Quimbo and Lorenzo Erin Tanada, unwittingly recalling the uproar over the perceived undue haste behind the complaint’s elevation to the Senate.

Many in the legal sector and civil society have regarded the initial move in the House of Representatives to impeach Corona as an abbreviated process that set a record of sorts in speed reading by the 188 congressman who signed the complaint. They undoubtedly persist to be disappointed that the motion of the defense to waive or forego the trial was denied.

They still shake their heads in disbelief that the complainant-congressmen were, indeed, able to read, understand, analyze, evaluate, and fully appreciate, sans extensive discussion, the 57 pages and more than a hundred supporting documents in just one hour. Not to throw in so short a time how long  it took to sign the papers that triggered the trial.

On the side of Corona, groups have been acknowledged as very vocal about alleged moves by the Palace and allies to skirt the impeachment process and the rules of trial to ensure a guilty verdict on Corona as charged in the eight articles of impeachment.

Also decried was the prosecution’s over-reliance in if not abuse of media (some mea culpas hereby acknowledged) in mis-portraying the embattled Chief Justice outside the rules and confines of the impeachment trial.

Even to neutral observers, resident kibitzer Jose avowedly among them, there is no disregard of the allegation that the former President, now in hospital arrest Rep. Gloria Arroyo, bent and twisted laws to benefit her allies, the selecti quidam or chosen ones.

But then, neither could they remonstrate enough against using the wrong committed by PGMA to justify another wrong – especially at the bidding of someone on the Matuwid na Daan.

Having said all that, there is one thing that, to my mind, absolutely cannot be left unsaid. It there’s one who’s coming out a winner in the ongoing impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, it is Senate President Juan Ponce who presides at the Impeachment Court.

The veteran lawyer and legislator Manong Johnny shows in the manner the impeachment trial has been conducted, leaving no impression of leaning towards one side or the other. The Enrile court has certainly acquitted itself as an augury for those who hope, not merely for sobriety, but above all for impartiality in the decision rendered ultimately by the court.

It’s bound to take some doing and then more by Senator-Judges to rise above their personal and partisan biases even as they resist pressures from different quarters.

But I believe along with kibitzer Jose that, for all the world’s wretched skepticism, miracles could still happen.