Someone asked me why I’ve thrown my support behind P-Noy’s public indictment of Renato Corona and call for the people to voice their sentiments through some kind of People Power when there’s an impeachment going on.
One, Renato Corona had an interesting reaction to P-Noy last week. In the interests of truth and transparency, he proposed, why doesn’t the President reveal his psychological profile to us? “We have an obligation to show the people that we are of sound mind.”
Edsa II, as Miriam Santiago pointed out at the beginning of Renato Corona’s impeachment trial, before she went on her high horse and tried to underwhelm the world with her presumed legal brilliance, arose because they voted not to open the second envelope. As it turned out, she said, there was really nothing to compromise Erap about the contents of the second envelope. But the public, suspecting that the truth was being withheld from them, if not in fact being trampled underfoot, went ballistic, and the rest was history.
At La Concolacion College last Thursday, someone asked President Aquino what he thought would happen to his campaign against corruption if the impeachment court should decide to acquit Renato Corona. He replied, “It would become extremely difficult, if not impossible” to prosecute.
Several senator-judges cited the fear of a constitutional crisis as their main reason for bowing down to the Supreme Court’s TRO.
I got the call an hour before the event. A friend of mine was asking if I had heard anything about the press conference defense was about to spring on the public. I said no, I didn’t even know there was one. My friend said defense was announcing it all over the place. They had hastily called for a press conference to drop a bomb.
One, before the Supreme Court issued its TRO on the opening of Renato Corona’s dollar accounts, Tranquil Salvador, a member of the defense, justified their begging the Court to do so in this wise: “We were put in a corner like a cat or rat. So where else can we go?”
Has the Supreme Court sparked a constitutional crisis? Not really. All it’s done is to spark a credibility crisis—on its part.
I remember a scene from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” where Eli Wallach is taking a bath and someone appears with gun in hand and murder in mind. The would-be killer gloats over his position and rants about how sweet vengeance is. Suddenly, Wallach’s gun fires from under the soapsuds and the fellow slumps to the ground. Wallach says: “You want to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
One, the Surgeon General has determined that watching the impeachment trial can be hazardous to your health. It can often be the most stressful thing there is, and not for the reason that it is so frenetic and suspenseful it can ravage your heart. In fact the opposite is true. It can often give you the sensation of being stuck in traffic. Which is the most stressful thing there is.
One, but of course the prosecution submitted the list of 45 houses apparently belonging to Renato Corona to the media. Jinggoy Estrada is right about that. It was Niel Tupas and company who brought it to the attention of reporters in a press conference. It wasn’t solicited, it was gratuitous.
Frankly, I couldn’t understand that whole discussion last week about whether Renato Corona’s failure to correctly disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) constituted a high crime or not.
