Wreath

What in God’s—or the devil’s—name is Renato Corona complaining about? He should be glad he’s still there—though that’s not beyond rectifying. I’m glad in this respect that several groups, including the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines

(Fasap) itself, are seriously contemplating filing impeachment charges against the justices, chief of them their Chief.

Corona’s belligerence doesn’t impress, it disgusts. It’s mind-bogglingly ill-timed. The last thing he should be doing now is fulminating, the first is apologizing. The last thing he should be  now is combative, the first is shamefaced. Corona hasn’t given justice its crowning glory, he has laid a corona, or wreath, at its feet. After “salvaging” it and tossing it to a shallow grave.

The congressmen say the three branches of government should wave the olive branch at one another, the recent acrimony between the Executive and the Judiciary in particular having just turned exceptionally sour. “I think it’s time for all branches to take a step back and de-escalate the conflict,” says Juan Edgardo Angara. “Inter-branch squabbling is not good for the country.”

Why? Why shouldn’t it be good for the country? The point of the three branches of government is to unite with the people, not with each other. The point of the three branches of government is to reconcile with the people, not with each other. If all of them are doing their damndest best to serve the people, then by all means they should unite and reconcile with each other, the better to serve them. If one of them is doing its damndest best to screw the people, then the other two should come down on it, and specifically try to remove the people claiming to represent it, the better to spare the people from further torment.

That is what checks and balances mean.

Corona’s sins are monumental. First he has laid a wreath at the meaning of “Supreme.”

That was so from the start. He should never have been there. Corona was a midnight appointee, having been named to succeed the previous chief justice, Reynato Puno, by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a few weeks before she was to step down. For services rendered in the past, for services to be rendered in the future. P-Noy would soon void all midnight appointments but Corona would dodge that by the simple ploy of his own court ruling that he was exempted from it. To date, he is the only remaining midnight appointee since the dawning of a new president.

What is the business of lawyers? It is to “practice law in the grand manner,” says Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is to show a breadth of vision, a depth of understanding, a fullness of wisdom so as to make of law a living thing, a thing that goes beyond the text pasted on the yellowing pages of a book tucked in an obscure corner of the library to one that shines forth in all its glory in everyday life, making the law, imperfect as it is, aspire toward justice. If that is so for ordinary lawyers, then that is surely so for justices. If that is so for ordinary courts, then that is surely so for the Supreme Court.

That Corona accepted his midnight appointment, that he in fact toiled in the night to secure his midnight appointment, that alone should have voided his right to become chief justice. It betrays its spirit, it betrays its essence. Whatever his own justices say, which too must void their existence. Whatever body of text to justify it they might have unearthed like skeletons after they’ve raided law’s excavation sites. The business of the chief justice is to practice law in a supremely grand manner. It is not to secure power, and cling to it for dear life, in a supremely sniveling manner, like an Illegitimate President. Certainly it is not to show a capacity for behavior the English have called shameless, the Spanish sin verguenza, and the Filipinos walang hiya.

Second, he has laid a wreath at the meaning of “Court.”

That the Court he presides over has done what it has done to the flight attendants, which is to oppress them several times over after they had gone to it for redress, and after they had waited for 13 years, growing tired, growing bitter, growing furious, that is the most unkindest cut of all. That the Court he presides over has made of finality a never-ending story, that “salvages” justice completely and buries it in a shallow grave.

In the past, if you were poor, you could always gamble, notwithstanding that in this country the rich got away with murder, that in your case you could get lucky and the rich might lose. You could always hope that even if the courts of first instance and of appeals had been deaf to your entreaty, the Supreme Court would not. Maybe in your case, the Supreme Court might want to be pogi and decide on the basis of merit and not on the enticement of lucre, and rule in your favor. There was always that chance at least.

Corona’s Court has removed that chance completely. It has done so not by showing that the Supreme Court would always, or near-always, vote in favor of the rich, but by something worse. It has done so by showing that the Court would never vote at all. Or it has done so by showing that the Court could vote this way or that way, but that wouldn’t really matter a hoot because that would never be final, the Court could always reopen a case it has ruled upon with finality. What it has done three times, it can do forever.

Why in God’s—or the devil’s—name would anyone ever want to go to court again? Why would anyone go to such lengths, such cost, and such anguish to try to get justice for a case that will go on and on like the song in “Titanic” or the end of the world itself, whichever makes you cringe more? Corona hasn’t just killed the meaning of Supreme, he has killed the essence of Court. All he leaves by way of legacy is:

A wreath.