‘Sunset glory’

Front  page  photos and TV footage focused on togas and initial skirmishes when the   first-ever impeachment of a  Supreme Court chief justice began  Monday. Below the surface, however,  the “deep-running currents” had  shifted.

 They no longer eddied about  the embattled Renato Corona, 64. Instead, they swirl  about  the 88-year old  Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile  who presides over the trial. His rulings and guidance  could  spur --- or derail  ---  judiciary reforms in the decades ahead.

 Today’s  maroon robes  improve on black  togas, grabbed off the rack, when President  Joseph  Estrada  was impeached. in December 2000. “Costly  thy  habit…but not expressed in fancy /  Rich not gaudy,” Polonious counsels in Hamlet : “For  the apparel oft  proclaims the man.”

  “To thine own self be true,” he added.  “And  it must follow as the night the day  / Thou can’st be false to any man.”   Will  impeachment  2012 be  fair?

 Manicured hands on the Holy Writ,  senators swore to ensure justice, not  realpolitik.  Would  a  Sen. Ferdinand Marcos  Jr  recognize justice even  if he bumped into it?. You wonder. Will  the  oaths prevent a  repeat of  the aborted  impeachment of   2001?.

 Marcos got a lapdog  Batasan to wastebasket impeachment charges. “But the matter  did not end there,” constitutional scholar Joaquin Bernas recalls. People Power intervened. “Is  Estrada ready for a return of Edsa?”, Cebu Daily News wondered in a prescient editorial  on Nov 29, 2000.

Eleven jurors, however, sealed, on Jan. 11, the “Second  Envelope”  against Erap.  Sen. Tessie Aquino-Oreta sashayed on the Senate floor. Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Vicente Sotto III, Gregorio Honasan and others  savored  “victory.”

It was short-lived.  Minutes after, People Power II erupted, sweeping away a degraded impeachment trial  That  the ‘Craven Eleven’ biased judges  were trashed at Edsa – site for selfless heroism – added to the sting.”

Today,  Corona protests, “unfair publicity”  World Bank’s firebombed  his  leaky  oversight of a  $21.9 million grant  for the Judicial Reform Support Project. Malacanang questions his  luxurious condos from Bellagio to  Blue Ridge .  “If you find them, you can have them,” he snapped.

Who hit the replay button?

Philippine Center for Journalism traced, in December 2000, Estrada holdings in 63 corporations and five houses,  from a P58.9 million mansion in Wack Wack to the P328.6 million Boracay Mansion  at  100  Eleventh  Street in New Manila. --- abandoned in the aftermath of Edsa II.

Impeachment  2001 morphed into  a unique tutorial on governance. People grabbed meals before TV screens. They tracked debates, over radio, in jeepneys.  This was before Tweets. Many texted comments on newspaper reports. This morning-to-dusk  “seminar” enabled Filipinos to see institutions interact with knaves, judges, heroic citizens, politics and graft in the highest office of the land.

Truth transforms. People were changed, as values trounced  head counts. Catholic “liberation theologians” dub  this tutoring of a people, handcuffed by unjust social structures, on their rights as “conscientization “  Citizens learn to demand accountability

 Ultimately, Impeachment 2012  will boil down to restoring  institutional integrity.  Justices  cartwheel  whenever former Justice Secretary Estelito Mendoza  posts a letter to them,  city mayors, flight attendants and shipyard officials grouse.

 Even  a Corona  victory… won’t  expunge doubts “ about appropriateness of his continued leadership , wrote Columnist  Boo Chanco. “He is damaged…and will  be unable to lead the Supreme Court in a way that a respected  chief  justice could.”

 Corona is  intelligent with long  public  experience. He doesn’t  need  a crystal  bowl  to  anticipate however  the decision reads, it will also be an obituary, even implicit,  for the country’s  23rd  chief  justice’s rocky career.

 Against  his better instincts   and counsel, Corona embraced a  midnight appointment, given  two days after the 2010 elections. That  was  a month  before President  Gloria Macapagal  Arroyo stepped down from  Malacanang ----   enroute  to arrest for plunder and other high crimes, it turned out.

 Corona’s  capacity  to  lead the Supreme Court died then. Filing of impeachment by 188 congressmen, last  month, merely  confirmed  the “dead-on-arrival” notice. His  19- 0 decisions,  coddling  his now  embattled  patron, is a post-mortem footnote.

 To  battle for “independence of the judiciary” is Corona ’s vow.. Filipinos, however,  don’t  muddle  persons  with  institutions. The latest Social Weather Station survey  shows a  net+24 or moderately positive rating for the Court.  But citizens ticked off  Corona  at a  cellar level of   net-14.

 There was a correlation between satisfaction with Corona and trust in ( Gloria Arroyo),” Mahar Mangahas wrote in Inquirer over the weekend. “The great majority who distrusted her gave Corona a poor rating of –21.”

 Enrile  is a brilliant lawyer and legislator. His record is  mixed, to say the least.  He faked  a  Wack-Wack ambush to enable Ferdinand Marcos to clamp on martial law. Thousands were killed, “disappeared” or tortured under his watch.. However, he played  a key  People Power One that restored  freedom. That  was smudged by  his “God Save The Queen” plots against Corazon Aquino who fired him

 Providence grants very few people   once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to alter  history with sunset. glory. The bright  penniless lad from Gonzaga, Cagayan, now has the  chance to do just  that. from the impeachment court’s presiding chair,

 Enrile’s “finest hour”  may  just be  around the corner. Not so for Corona .  Sayang..*

(   Email: juan_mercado77@yahoo.com )

back to top