A law for Corona?

I was aghast when I read a news item saying that the members of the Supreme Court are planning to grant ex-Chief Justice Renato Corona all his retirement benefits as he leaves his office. What? A lowly clerk in the government who is found guilty of misappropriating a few hundred pesos is not only dismissed from the service, he is also deprived of all benefits and banned from appointment to any position in government all his life.

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How did Senator Koko Pimentel say it? “Ang batas para kay Juan ay batas din para kay Renato (The law for Juan is also the law for Renato).” Does the Supreme Court feel it can adopt another law for its disgraced head? Can justices go around regulations of the Commission on Audit in sympathy for their fallen member? The benefits concerned are monetary, and, judging from all those millions, some in dollars that he stashed away, money is the last thing Corona needs.

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Another thing to be noted: Is it not that the retirement benefits are tax-exempt? Wow, the millions that will bring him – in case the sympathetic justices have their way, will all come entire, with no deductions, I think, not even withholding tax! Who can be so lucky? But, wait, there is Bureau of Internal Revenue chief Kim Henares, who seems to be salivating over the millions she may raise for the government from the untaxed and undeclared millions of Corona. So we may break even, after all.

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Meanwhile, the Judicial Bar Council, the body that vets the candidates for Supreme Court membership has announced that it will require all the potential justices to sign waivers and present their statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. Not for public consumption, I hope? The JBC members should sign a statement that they will not disclose what they see in the statements of the potential Supreme Court Justices. The poor fellows and even their families might become targets of robberies, kidnapping for ransom. Prudence should rule over any attempt to ensure the so-called “transparency”.

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Somebody from the Senate-Court who has also gained popularity is its Sergeant-at-Arms Jose Balajadia, who has been the subject of interviews that have disclosed his background as a former fighter pilot in the country’s Air-Force. He was the guy who always started the hearings going after he announced, “Please all rise…” Seems he got a lot of ribbing from his friends for that line, and one of the funniest was that of Senator Lito Lapid who, he said, told him “Puro ka lang rice, bigyan kita ng ulam (You are always talking about rice, I will give you some viand)”.

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Sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, as the saying goes. Remember that damning video of the airport drama involving movie actress Claudine Barretto, her husband Raymart Santiago and columnist Ramon Tulfo? A videotape furnished by an admirer of Tulfo showed him being ganged up on by the Barretto group led by Claudine herself who now qualifies for UFC fighting? The Barretto party had been complaining that the tape was only the latter part of the show, the first part, if available, would be in their favor.

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Well, I read somewhere that a copy of the tape on the start of the bout has finally been found and horrors! It looks like if it only managed to point to them as the ones at fault. So Tulfo must be winking his blackened eye and ordering his lawyers to get on with their charges. As for Ms. Barretto, one can only wonder how this image of her as a wrestler will affect her fans. But at least she has reportedly managed to placate that airport employee she was berating, in the incident that started the whole affair.

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Criminals often do the darnedest things to confound the cops. In Penang, Malaysia, the police were chasing a man driving a carnapped BMW car. When they finally cornered him, and was walking towards his vehicle, he sprang out of it, hopped on the motorcycle of one of the cops, and fled. At the time the report was filed, the police had not caught up with him yet.*

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