Peached Corona

LOOKING ASKANCE  By Joseph Gonzales (The Freeman) Updated December 18, 2011

Chief Justice Renato Corona isn’t acting in, well, a judicious manner. After being bestowed with the dubious honor of being the very first Supreme Court Justice to be impeached by our House of Representatives, Corona came out swinging.He accused the President of persecuting him, he lashed out at the motives of the Congressmen who cast their votes for his impeachment, and came out before the press, with family and friends behind him to signify their support, airing his side and venting his grievances.Not exactly the sort of behavior that we expect to see from a sitting justice, and one holding the post of Chief Justice at that.

If there is any institution that depends on public perception for its credibility, it is the judiciary.It is this branch of the government that needs to have the public believe that it is wise, that it is infallible, for its decisions to have acceptability.If the public does not believe that the judges are good judges, that they will be impartial, and that they know best, that public will never submit to the authority of the court.Why, after all, would they let a defective institution decide their lives for them?Why allow themselves to be judged by men who are as flawed as they are?They need brilliant men to tell them what to do, men who are not just intellectual scholars, but also merciful and compassionate.

That holds true, to an even greater degree, with Supreme Court appointees.As the highest court in the land, the occupants need to be viewed as, yes, almost like gods.Gods who are perfect, gods who lord it over the rest of us foolish citizens and herd us into this or that direction depending on how they interpret the law.For us foolish sheep, we have to believe the herders aren’t leading us to doom.

Corona’s actuations in one way perpetuate that necessary myth.All that he has done is show us citizens that he is not above the fray.Instead, he’s dashed madly into the melee, arms swinging (figuratively) and tongue lashing (semi-literally).Yes, he can play politics too!He can play the press, giving them access to his inside views.He can spin the story, slanting the views to his side.He seeks to tug the heart strings of ordinary citizens, bewailing his impeachment as ‘an attack on the independence of the judicial branch,’ ‘an affront to all judges,’ a “Constitutional crisis”, a ‘threat to our democracy.’ Take your pick, they’re there for anyone willing to be taken in.

Not just that, but Corona has actually used his position to rally other justices, judges and judicial staff around him.He has galvanized them into action, leading a prayer rally and a stoppage of work.No hearings, no decisions?Prisoners spend an extra day in jail while their cases are decided?Litigants postpone their hearings to another day a month in the future as the judges have walked out?The halls of justice are closed because the nominal head is under attack?Is that what he is willing to let happen just so he can keep his position?

Corona denies that he ordered the instant judicial rally.Never mind there was a supposed message from his Court Administrator to branches around the country.If he was a real leader of that institution though, as soon as he saw all these court personnel were prepared to stop work for him, he should have stopped them in their tracks.He should have told all of them, “Don’t.Don’t do this for me. Go back to work.What you are doing, dispensing justice, is more important than me.”

But this, he did not do.Instead, he let it all play out, letting them pray to God here and rally there.We saw court staff with black armbands, and the spokesman of the court speaking not about ground breaking decisions of the high court, but what its occupant was doing and thinking at the moment.

By all these, Corona has granted ordinary citizens access to him.He has dispelled the cloak of mystery that surrounds the Supreme Court and its occupants, and let them see that it is occupied by imperfect individuals, with wants and needs and emotions and motives.

If there is anything that just damaged the judiciary, it is not the impeachment process.Rather, it is the cracks he has opened.

Merry Christmas in different tongues

Madayaw na Pasko asta Bag-o na Tuig puhon sa iyo! (Tandag)
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! (English)
Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon sa lahat! (Filipino)
Malipayong Pasko ug Bulahang Bag-ong Tuig sa tanan! (Cebuano)
Selamat Hari Natal Dyuga Dan Selamat Tahun Baru! (Bahasa)
Madyaw nga Pasko ug mangyat nga pagsuog hong Bag-o nga tuig! (Butuan)

Mele Kalikimaka e Hauoli Makahiki Hou! (Hawaiian)
Vrolijke Kerstmis en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar aan iedereen! (Dutch)
Joyeux Noël et une nouvelle année heureuse à chacun ! (French)
Frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr zu jeder! (German)
Christmas alegre e um ano novo feliz a todos! (Portuguese)
¡Feliz Navidad y una Feliz Año Nuevo a cada uno! (Spanish)

Merry Christmas

To my dear readers:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

May the peace that our Lord Jesus Christ brings fill you and your love ones today and every day. 

9 senator-judges still undecided on Corona: Roque

from a report by Lynda Jumilla

ABS-CBN News

MANILA, Philippines – Analysts believe politics and not evidence will be the deciding factor when the Senate hears the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

As soon as the impeachment case reached the Senate, all eyes turned to the senator-judges and how they will decide on the fate of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Lawyer and law professor Harry Roque was among the first to come out with his fearless forecast.

“Kung bukas na ang impeachment, naniniwala ako na 10 pa lamang ang boto para matanggal si Corona… at 4 ang siguradong boboto pabor kay Corona. Siyam pa ang undecided,” he said.

Roque expects a conviction from Senators Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, Ralph Recto, and TG Guingona, who are all partymates of President Benigno Aquino.

Others expected to vote for Corona’s conviction are Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile – whose leadership was allegedly threatened recently – and his lieutenants Tito Sotto and Gringo Honasan, as well as Antonio Trillanes, Jinggoy Estrada, and Panfilo Lacson, who are all sworn enemies of former President Arroyo.

Proxy fight

“Aminin naman natin na proxy fight ito. Ang naglalaban laban pa rin, pwersa ni Gloria at ang pwersa ng Pangulo,” Roque said.

On the other hand, Roque expects an acquittal from Arroyo partymates Bong Revilla and Lito Lapid, as well as Aquino’s critics Bongbong Marcos and Joker Arroyo.

Roque believes 9 senators are still undecided, or at least hard to read.

They are Senators Miriam Santiago, Edgardo Angara, Loren Legarda, Manny Villar, Pia Cayetano, Alan Cayetano, and even Aquino allies Serge Osmeña, Koko Pimentel, and Chiz Escudero.

Sixteen votes are need to convict Corona and remove him from office. Eight are are needed to acquit.

Roque expects the undecided will be a target of intense lobbying from both camps.

Politics over evidence?

Meanwhile, Roque and political professor and analyst Ed Tayao agree that political considerations will prevail over legal evidence in the senators’ decision-making.

“Foremost consideration (in voting) for sure is 2013 elections for the reelectionists,” Tayao said.

He said senators are politicians and not judges, and the impeachment is a political, rather than legal process.

Trillanes and Escudero acknowledged this, and the latter appealed to his colleagues.

“I will not be led into thinking or believing that this is a legal trial. This is a matter of policy, a political process,” Trillanes said.

“Dapat nakabatay na ‘yon sa ebidensya na ipriprisinta at sa batas na umiiral base sa mga alegasyong ginamit laban kay Chief Justice Corona,” Escudero said.

Corona’s trial proper will begin in January.

Many things can still happen to shape the senators’ decision or change their mind. – ANC

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/12/15/11/9-senator-judges-still-undecided-corona-roque

GMA and CJ Corona’s monumental blunders

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR 

By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star

At about the time last December 9 when the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) camp was making a big fuss about being transported by chopper to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), former president (and prisoner) Joseph “Erap” Estrada” scored several points against GMA during a GMA NewsTV interview.

Erap commented that GMA was afraid to ride the PNP (Philippine National Police) choppers because she knows that they sold the police substandard and second hand helicopters. Comparing how he and his son Jinggoy were treated when they were arrested by the GMA administration in 2000, Erap noted how much better GMA is being treated by the President Noynoy Aquino (P-Noy) administration — said in the context of courtesy, better accommodations and leniency.

After listening last December 9 to how GMA Spokesperson Elena B. Horn and clown cum lawyer Ferdie Topacio were trying to squeeze an issue out a non-issue, Erap turned up to be a breath of fresh air. Whether GMA was transported by land or air to the VMMC is solely the decision of the Court that ordered her arrest. Horn and Topacio were clearly huckstering like shysters in trying to make it appear that they have an option on how GMA is to be transported. Maybe they got spoiled by the Rene Corona Supreme Court (SC) that had bended over backwards for GMA in many controversial decisions.

Some folks think that the GMA camp has been resorting to making mountains out of molehills and non-issues to try to reverse public opinion against her. If that’s the objective of the GMA camp, then they have idiots strategizing for them. The truth is — GMA has only succeeded in intensifying the people’s ire against her with these antics of Horn and Topacio. To many, they’re acting like spoiled brats expecting royal treatment in jail.

When Horn told media about OPLAN (Operation Plan) “Put the little girl to sleep” — widely seen as a concocted tale designed to get public sympathy — people didn’t hold their breath in fear or apprehension. They reacted with laughter and the Internet as well as social networks went hyperactive with funny jokes about the so-called assassination plot, essentially underscoring that nobody bought the tall tale.

The admirable manner by which indicted former Comelec Chairman Ben Abalos surrendered himself to the court and accepted the quarters where they detained him shames Horn and Topacio for all their bellyaching. By demonstrating grace under fire, Abalos looked more presidential than the widely regarded fake president.

On deeper introspection, these antics of the GMA camp could be more of an attempt to satisfy GMA’s craving for affection and attention. More than a reversal of negative public opinion — hard to imagine how such a hate figure could realistically hope to change her public image overnight — it could be attention and affection that GMA needs. Presidential power gave her all these, courtesy of the usual sycophants, and now she is suffering the loss of power and all the attention and affection she had enjoyed for nine years.

A good example of the public pulse against GMA — and Chief Justice Rene Corona — is this Facebook posting of Macie F. Imperial, a media executive in charge of foreign film acquisitions.

Macie wrote: “As a mother, I want to be able to inspire my children to continue to have hope and faith in the leaders of their beautiful country. But how can I when we had men of justice like Raul Gonzalez, Merceditas Gutierrez, the Marcoses and Fabian Ver, and oh so many more vile men and women who have turned this mother into a faithless cynic. So now we have Renato Corona, who is fast becoming the most hated person in the Philippines, perhaps second only to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. But I tell my children to continue to have faith, even as I continue to lose mine, that perhaps there are still a few good men left and that there might still be hope after all for our country. That perhaps Renato Corona does have a conscience after all and will eventually do the right and moral thing. Mabuhay ka P-Noy for giving me a bit of hope.”

A STAR blogger using the name ROG wrote this last December 8: “With P-Noy standing up against the Supreme Court and the crooked ways that embodies our judiciary, I become more hopeful of the country’s future. It is common knowledge that the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, is one of the pillars of corruption in this country and it is time that they know that majority of the Filipino people disliked them. This feeling of disdain was mouthed by P-Noy and it is as if the voice of the Filipino people are brought to the justices’ sh_meless faces! What a President. I never really thought P-Noy could do it. Now I’m starting to feel proud to be a Filipino again.”

Also last December 8, another STAR blogger using the name RESPAJ wrote this: “People now have a glimpse of hope in our present President. He has the moral ascendancy to question the appointees of Gloria, top of them all was (Chief Justice) Corona. No president was able to confront the SC face to face. This is only done by a person with inward courage and conviction which GMA doesn’t have at all.”

Corona should realize that his underlings in the Judiciary would always demonstrate support for any Chief Justice under siege. He made a major blunder by delivering that December 14 speech where he warned about a looming P-Noy dictatorship. Corona also made the monumental mistake of leaving his lofty perch as SC Chief Justice and became another rabble-rousing politician seeking to reverse the public mood.

Corona’s sales pitch was wrongly premised by raising the alarm about a looming P-Noy dictatorship. Filipinos see the Aquinos as champions (Cory) and martyrs (Ninoy) of democracy while GMA, the perceived fake president Corona is accused of protecting, is the one whom Filipinos perceive as having created a virtual dictatorship.

You’ll find many other similar sentiments expressed on media and social networks. Note the polarization that’s reflected in these expressions of the public mind and heart. It approximates the GOOD versus EVIL polarization of the 1986 Cory versus Marcos fight. This level of public passion could lead to extreme political developments.

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Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com

Christmas is Freedom

Fr. Shay Cullen

(His columns are published in The Manila Times,
in publications in Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, and on-line)

There is a lot about Christmas that the world doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know or conveniently forgets in its pursuit of pleasure, possessions and power. And that is, that the “Christ” in Christmas was a person, fully human and Son of God, demanding an end to greed and exploitation.

That sweet baby Jesus in the Christmas manger, born in poverty among peasants and while still in swaddling clothes faced death threats and assassins sent by the corrupt and lust-filled King Herod. Jesus and his parents were refugees and asylum- seekers in a foreign land fleeing certain death. Good his mother Mary and Joseph didn’t apply to a nation with strict anti-immigration laws and racists attitudes, they would have been deported, expelled, kicked out and then caught and executed with the hundreds of innocents in Herod’s slaughter, a horrific crime against children and humanity.

The baby from Bethlehem, became the man from Nazareth who grew up to be the fiery prophet, the calm peace-maker, the loving friend, the healer of the sick, the hope of the hopeless and the shepherd of the lost. He was the bane of the rich and powerful too. He is the young man that was kicked out of his home synagogue in Nazareth and was almost killed for quoting the Prophet Isaiah and taking on his mission as his own. He was a real trouble maker and rebel to some in his home town.

He read the lesson quoting Isaiah (Luke.4;4 -30) from the scripture and he made it his life’s work to bring good news to the poor, telling them in effect that they, the poor, are blessed, precious and the kingdom of God is for them. As if saying: “You are the true children of the father, the inheritance of the land is yours”. To the religious authorities this was heresy, subversion, and close to blasphemy, a crime that carried the death penalty.

In today’s world defending the poor and the environment from the loggers, land-grabbers and the ruling elite also carries the unofficial death penalty. Human rights advocates, environmentalists, journalists, priests and pastors are branded as communists and subversives for speaking out for the poor and they are killed as was my friend Father Fausto Tentorio, last 17 October 2011, for standing with the poor. His friends and fellow priests are still threatened and harassed.

In the time of Jesus of Nazareth, the elite claimed they had the divine blessing and the right to the Kingdom. They constantly thanked God for their elite status, ascendancy, wealth and for being the chosen ones. They felt that the carpenter’s son, born of a peasant girl, was challenging them and their system by taking the side of the poor and they were angry when he scolded them as hypocrites.

Yet, he didn’t end there. He continued quoting Isaiah declaring an end to the captive status of the poor and the oppressed, an end to injustice, slavery of all kinds, freedom for the women and children, a new life for the exploited and those unjustly accused, imprisoned, persecuted and harassed. And he declared the freedom of Christmas so the poor can escape from the clutches of commercial consumerism.

Christmas is about transforming a materialistic world, not joining in the wasteful extravagance. It’s a time for family togetherness and peace-making and making commitments to work for a more just society and continuing the work of Jesus, born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, but very much alive today.

It’s a time to renew friendship and the values that keep us human and spiritual, united, sane and secure. It’s not enough to admire the child in the manger; we have to imitate him as a man of action.

Jesus was an agent of change, a revolutionary of the spirit that loved as no man had so loved his friends, his people, the poor, the outcasts and downtrodden and died for them. That’s what Christmas keeps alive in us the living spirit of self-giving and caring for others. What we learn from the child in the manger, the man on the cross is that following Christ is to be a washer of feet and an advocate of human rights. END

Corona of Thorns

CITIZEN Y 

By Yoly Villanueva-Ong 
The Philippine Star

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is”. — Winston Churchill

In the warped world of Philippine politics, calling-a-spade-a-spade is often branded “impolite, undiplomatic and un-statesmanlike.” Following this logic and giving politicians the benefit of the doubt that they can recognize truth, do they believe that observing politesse is more important than telling the truth?

The criticism against President Aquino at the Justice Summit was that he disrespected the Tribunal by rebuking them within hearing distance. No one argues that what he said was true. Just that it was not the right place. One trapo pointed out that the Judiciary is a co-equal branch, implying that it cannot be castigated. A so-called constitutionalist likened PNoy to Fidel Castro. The “Media-pit-bulls” are barking away.

In the plastic world of politics, euphemisms abound. Diplomacy is synonymous with doublespeak, hypocrisy and outright deceit. Backstabbing, backbiting, backchannels, backroom deals are default modes of behavior. Confronting truth and telling it in-your-face is sacrilege. Nothing addles a politician more than being cornered frontally and hearing his sins publicly.

The Chief Justice supposedly scored points for maintaining his cool. But wasn’t it more like the-cat-got-his-tongue after a public censure? Even “kapal-muks” has limits after all.

He is not often tongue-tied. At the oral arguments on the DOJ watch-list orders against the Arroyos, Corona was hot-under-the-collar. He lashed out at SolGen Joel Cadiz, “Imagine six or seven years from now, if a person is being hounded by their political enemies with the same vigor as you have, don’t you think it would be incumbent to this Court to give their constitutional right the same importance we are giving them today.”

The well-oiled propaganda machinery of the former-possibly-fake-president is working overtime, unsubtly attempting to turn mistress and minion into underdogs. Amazingly, even their sound bytes are alike. Under hospital arrest in the newly refurbished suite at Veterans Hospital, Arroyo professed, “My conscience is clean”. Corona pontificates, “We decide cases according to the Constitution, the law, and our conscience”. Their consciences must be related.

Senator Frank Drilon compiled the list of 19 cases revealing Corona’s voting record:

1) Concurred in the Dec. 7, 2010 SC ruling declaring the Truth Commission unconstitutional.

2) Concurred in the Oct. 10, 2010 decision stopping the Aquino administration from revoking the appointment of Arroyo midnight appointees.

3) Concurred in the April 7, 2010 ruling denying the petition of then Sen. Noynoy Aquino and upholding RA 9716 that divided Camarines Sur into First and Second Districts.

4) Concurred in the decision reversing its previous decision that Sandiganbayan can try former Rep. Kokoy Romualdez, whose son is a known Arroyo-ally.

5) Concurred in the Feb. 11, 2009 decision upholding the validity of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and ordering the transfer of US serviceman and rape convict Daniel Smith to a Philippine detention facility.

6) Dissented in the October 14, 2008 decision declaring as “contrary to law and the Constitution” the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) entered into by Arroyo’s peace negotiators with MILF.

7) Concurred with the July 16, 2008 decision declaring as covered by executive privilege and not subject to public disclosure — communications on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement signed by Arroyo and former Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi on September 9, 2006.

 Concurred with the March 25, 2009 decision stating that then SSS Chairman Romulo Neri was not liable for contempt for not appearing in the Senate hearings of the NBN-ZTE scandal because of executive privilege.

9) Dissented in the February 15, 2008 decision declaring that the wiretapped “Hello Garci” conversation was not prohibited from broadcast.

10) Dissented in the May 3, 2006 decision declaring Arroyo’s Presidential Proclamation 1017 that placed the country under a state of national emergency on March 2006 as “partly constitutional, partly unconstitutional”.

11) Dissented in the October 25, 2006 decision dismissing the pro-Arroyo Sigaw ng Bayan’s petition to allow a people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution due to failure to comply with Constitutional requirements.

12) Concurred in the Aug. 15, 2006 decision declaring as valid, Arroyo’s gag-order prohibiting executive and military officials from appearing before congressional investigations without the president’s consent.

13) Concurred in the April 20, 2006 decision upholding the controversial EO 464 that allowed Malacanang officials to refuse to testify in congressional investigations invoking executive privilege.

14) Concurred with the April 19, 2006 cases declaring as valid, Arroyo’s EO 420 to establish a national ID policy.

15) Concurred in the December 13, 2005 decision allowing Arroyo to appoint “in an acting capacity” without seeking confirmation from the Commission on Appointments.

16) Concurred in the October 18, 2005 decision declaring as constitutional, RA 9337, the VAT Reform Act.

17) Dissented in the March 2, 2004 ruling dismissing petitions to disqualify then presidential aspirant FPJ because he was not a natural born citizen.

18) Concurred with the Feb. 3, 2004 decision declaring that Arroyo did not exceed her powers in issuing Proclamations 427, 435 and General Order No. 4 declaring a state of rebellion during the Oakwood Mutiny.

19) Dissented in the January 13, 2004 decision voiding the contract entered by COMELEC and Mega-Pacific firm for not going through the required public bidding.

The label “Coronarroyo” seems well-deserved.

Ten separate motions were filed to inhibit Corona from Arroyo’s petition questioning the legality of the DOJ-Comelec panel probing the alleged 2007/2004-poll fraud. The extraordinarily close professional and political relationship between Corona and Arroyo was cited. He was her chief-of-staff, presidential legal counsel, and executive secretary. Violating the law on midnight appointees, Arroyo appointed Corona chief justice on May 2010, a move deemed to protect her from accountability after presidential immunity lapses.

Sadly, it looks like brazenness will once again prevail. “The fact that he is still part of the deliberations means he has chosen to stay,” declared SC spokesman Midas Marquez. Conscience-malfunction.

Filipinos chose Truth over politics. Asked “Was it good for P-Noy to speak honestly about his differences with the SC at the justice summit”? Online poll results: Yes, 73.63%; No, 18.06%; Wrong venue, 7.46%; No opinion 0.85%

As Michael Levy noted, “You can bend it and twist it… misuse it and abuse it…but even God cannot change the truth.”

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http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=757944&publicationSubCategoryId=64