In due time?

BY DUCKY PAREDES

MALAYA

‘We need a Court that can rise above their friendships and clients, rise above their biases and make sacrifices for the blind Lady Justice and the Country.’

HOW much has chicanery must be uncovered about a sitting Chief Justice before he is proven to be unfit for his lofty perch? Why doesn’t impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona want to open his dollar accounts? What is he hiding? He keeps saying that – in due time – he will reveal anything,

When will that be? When he retires in 2017?

On his deathbed? Pagputi ng uwak?

Is he afraid that disclosure of his hoard of dollars would open a can of worms, that his claimed four decades of “hard and honest toil” where he says he accumulated a lot of savings would turn out to be the proceeds of quite possibly under-the-table deals?

Corona may have won a reprieve with Monday’s vote by the Senate to honor the SC’s TRO on his dollar accounts, but whatever euphoria that might have given him is certainly temporary and may be very short-lived.

Even the senator-judges. who voted not to pick a fight with the SC, by honoring the Court’s TRO explain that they will go to the SC to argue for the lifting of the TRO, if only to avoid a constitutional crisis. Of course, every senator (except for, maybe, one) stoutly opposes any TRO that would stop the impeachment trial itself. If the Supreme Court issues such a TRO, then the SC would have created the full-blown constitutional crisis, not the Senator-Judges!

Even just the fact that we are entertaining the possibility of a serious constitutional crisis arising from the judiciary curtailing the power of the Senate sitting as an impeachment court to do its work already tells us that there must be changes in the present SC. We need a Court that can rise above their friendships and clients, rise above their biases and make sacrifices for the blind Lady Justice and the Country. I want to say that “If Corona has nothing to hide, why does he not voluntarily open his dollar accounts to public scrutiny”; but, heck, of course he has everything to hide.

Clearly, whatever monies he was putting away while in the government service belong to a forbidden hoard of less-than-legal earnings. If it were not, there would be no reason for him to withhold these amounts in reporting his Statements of Assets Liabilities and Net Worth.(SALN)

Opening Corona’s dollar accounts to public scrutiny is relevant and material to Article 2 of the impeachment complaint that says Corona failed to file accurate and timely statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs). The first two weeks of the impeachment trial have unearthed the fact that Corona has misdeclared and undervalued his real estate properties and bank accounts in his SALNs in the millions of pesos.

His team of topnotch lawyers suggests that these “inaccuracies” in Corona’s SALN can be “corrected” and are not an impeachable offense at all? What rot!

Persons of lesser positions have been put in jail for less. Shouldn’t the bar for the person who is fifth in line in the hierarchy of the country be held to a higher (rather than a lower) standard?

Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello points out that the Supreme Court is using a double standard: “If the Supreme Court has sent two men to jail last year for dishonesty in their statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), how come it has turned a blind eye to Chief Justice Renato Corona’s duplicity in his own SALN?”

Bello raised this question after realizing that Corona did not report in his 2003-2006 SALN that someone within his 6th degree of consanguinity was also working in the government — his wife Cristina was Chair, President and CEO of the Camp John Hay Development Authority.

Bello says the SC’s affirmation of the conviction of Rogelio Galeos and Paulino Ong for nepotism “smacked of double standard” when seen in the light of the TRO it issued to stop the scrutiny of Corona’s dollar accounts in PSBank.

“If what House prosecutors have unearthed would not be enough to convict Corona, nothing will. In fact, his P19.7 million deposit in PSBank and P12 million ending balance in 2010 at BPI should prove the deceitfulness in his SALNs.”

The other members of the Supreme Court should stop coddling their Chief Justice when he is breaking the law. The SC Justices should stand aside and let their Chief fight his own battles. If they continue to do their best to shield Corona, they will only destroy themselves and the SC — unless, of course, they are all in the same boat — with their own hidden funds in the least likely places.

The Supreme Court should not be a sanctuary for scoundrels, says Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno. She’s right, of course; but, who listens to her among her peers?

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We have a letter: “Thank you for that very nice article (Culture of Impunity at the SC) . We need more of such exposure against the abuses of the SC.

“Please send a copy to Fr. Bernas also and ask him to explain the aim of the framers of constitution in giving the power to impeach to congress and power to decide on Senate when they knew that it is impossible to have an all lawyers as its members. If by his arguments the Impeachment court’s decision could be reviewed by SC, definitely it will fail because of the lack of background in legislation. Hence impeachment court as envisioned by the framers should and must decide not by question of law alone but by what is truth, and this truth cannot be blocked by any technicality of law.

“Thank you and please write more to educate us.” — EJ Flores, Las Piñas

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