Unfit for the Crown

Twenty-six years after the people power revolution, after being plunged into governments of dictatorship during Marcos regime, of public exploitation in the rule of wag-niyo-akong-susubukan President, and of deceit and shameless graft and corruption in the time of Miss Arroyo in the past, and finally now into the hands of an almost seemingly perfect President, we cannot help but ask what exactly has changed? For the good things that had happened and for those changes that had occurred for the betterment of our nation, we can only whisper a prayer of gratitude. Remember to count the blessings, but dont lose sight of the reality. The Republic of the Philippines 2011 -- a far cry from better life revolutionists once fought for and are still fighting for -- where one third of our people do not have to go to bed hungry at night; where hungry little Filipino children do not have to dig into stinking garbage cans for scraps of rotting food condemned to a life without a decent future. A far cry from superior systems of legislation and adjudication where the chances of obtaining justice is equal both for the rich and the poor; where people seeking for impartiality do not get impoverished with high legal fees and still end up played and unjustified forced to suffer the insulting glares of the privileged few. Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, the incumbent president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, summed up the general sentiment: Today, we are free as we claim, but that freedom has not yet resulted in a better life. The challenge today is, how do we use this freedom to achieve greater blessings? How do we use this freedom to develop the country where people live in the most humane conditions? What can we do then, when so much of this mass human suffering is directly caused by endemic institutionalized corruption present in all branches of our government?

Eradicating or minimizing government corruption will not happen unless corrupt officials are successfully prosecuted in court. But what if court officials are themselves corrupt? Of all government officials, justices and judges are the least subject to scrutiny and prosecution. They are hardly subjected to lifestyle checks. As such unchecked corrupt justices and judges seriously hinder the campaign against corruption. This is what Chief Justice Renato Coronas impeachment trial is all about. As formerly alleged midnight appointee of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, his trial is in line with the goal to clean government launched by the elected President Benigno Noynoy Aquino III. After the legal and swift filing and approval of the impeachment case against Corona, accusing him of falsifying his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), the trial was scheduled to start last January 16, 2011, Monday.

Legal Basis The SALN, which all public officials and employees are mandated to file, is the means to achieve the policy of accountability of all public officers and employees in the government. By the SALN, the public is able to monitor movement in the fortune of a public official; it is a valid check-and-balance mechanism to verify undisclosed properties and wealth. (Liberato M. Carabeo v. Court of Appeals et al., GR Nos. 178000 and 178003 dated Dec. 4, 2009) Depending on the gravity of the offense in the non-filing of the SALN or misrepresentations in the form, any official or employee shall be punished with a fine equivalent to not more than six months salary or suspension not exceeding one year, or removal from the service. Thus did the Supreme Court describe the SALN, a document which government employees treat as just one of those forms which they have to fill out every year and which, of late, has stirred the nations interest as a result of the impeachment trial of Corona.

The Circus Trial The legality of Coronas impeachment is too much to comprehend for those who are not well-versed with the rulings and proceedings of the senate. Undeniably though, the flare for drama in the prosecution of the chief justice is too flaunty to miss. Those who defend him cry unfairness. He is treated without respect, they say, and the courts he leads are marked by the same disrespect. But it should not be forgotten that the Chief Justice is not an ordinary man, and the law, blind as it is in defense of the ordinary, has acknowledged that this is an extraordinary man whose wrongs and rights should be judged by other laws. There is a court for the powerful, and it is called the impeachment court. The standards are higher, because the stakes are higher. The punishment is not jail; it is the stripping of the power that makes kings of ordinary men. Betrayal of the public trust, graft and corruption and culpable violation of the Constitution are not the sins of ordinary men, because ordinary men do not hold the public trust or determine the course of the lives of millions. It is a different justice, one that presidents and judges need to live in fear of, even if they muster thousands of supporters carrying black balloons or phalanxes of defenders with ready answers. More than anything, the impeachment court is an attempt at accountability, to take account of men who are invincible for the sake of those who are not. The courts power emanates not from the people, but from the court itself, from the faith of the public who live in fear and awe of gavels and robes. Once that faith is shaken, even the most formidable of justices cannot hand down decisions and expect to be believed. The impeachment court is meant to restore that awe. It is public, it is open to scrutiny, it is to be a display not so much of the national circus, but a demonstration of the grandest of democratic principles: the public will. The people elected the senatorjudges, the rules make no exceptions, and the logic is that no man is too powerful to refuse a just accounting.

What Next? Society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. Unseating the head of the Judicial Branch does much good, assuming he is guilty as charged. But that alone does not clean up the entire rotten court system. Other corrupt Justices and judges should also be removed and bold effective reforms instituted.

As we wait for the final verdict on the man who once held the gavel and passed on judgment, we are certain to witness the uphill and downhill of the virtues of the people involved. The least we could do is to muster some interest. After all, we are the Filipino people. We are the ones who have been done wrong. The question lingers, is our Supreme Court Justice fit to remain in office? If so, perhaps his surname is indeed fitting.

/Lee N. Trillanes with excerpts and information from The show must go on by Patricia Evangelista,Philippine Daily Inquirer; Is Corona morally fit to remain in office? by Ted Laguatan, PDI/