High-speed chase

Surprising was the speed with which Chief Justice Renato Corona was impeached on Monday and the articles of impeachment were physically transmitted from the House of Representatives to the Senate on Tuesday. But certain quarters, Corona included, appear to have become so inured to the glacial pace of justice hereabouts that they hold up his speedy impeachment as proof of Malacañang’s purported predilection for defying the rule of law. This line of thinking shows the folly in equating slowness for erudition, or hesitance for wisdom, as though weighty affairs may be resolved only after an indulgent rumination, rather like languidly chewing on an orchid as a storm rages outside.

To be sure, that as many as 188 members of the House voted to impeach Corona on eight counts proves Malacañang’s great clout. The numbers game is one of the sure-fire ways of politics, as the minority in the chamber, once high and mighty and now reduced to crying “railroad,” have realized maybe too well. (It somehow brings to mind the night of the long knives, Feb. 4, 2008, when the sons of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo imperiously presided over the unseating of Speaker Jose de Venecia. To think that “Manong Joe” was once a family friend and patron, whose timely expression of support for Arroyo in 2005 was instrumental in her managing to elude what would have been the fatal consequences of the “Hello Garci” election fraud scandal.) But the House vote of 188 also shows the overwhelming support for holding Corona to account for the charges, such as his perceived partiality to Arroyo who named him to his post in the dying days of her administration, in a clear “midnight” appointment. (That Arroyo herself continues to be under question for the controversial presidential election in 2004 adds to the shakiness of the position Corona holds.)

Critics have assailed President Aquino for his continuing broadsides against Corona, willfully picturing his speaking up against the Chief Justice as an assault on the Supreme Court, indeed on the entire judiciary. But where but only in the most perverse imagination can Corona—who once served Arroyo as her confidant and chief of staff and who, if expectations of superior moral behavior were to be met, should have declined his appointee’s largesse—can be taken as the high court itself, or as the symbol of the judicial branch? His remarks, delivered yesterday before his family and supporters at the Supreme Court, and startling for its surly inelegance, displayed to all and sundry the caliber of the man.

It’s unfortunate that the Chief Justice spoke the way he did, in a manner and language directed to the rabble and replete with allusions to the President’s supposed lack of understanding of the intricacies of statecraft. It’s one thing to speak in the national language (it’s a plus point, actually, given how even the national discourse has become so perfectly colonized); it’s quite another to employ it in a style appropriate, not for lofty office, but for the rough and tumble of the streets. Think of the awful possibilities that could come to fruit if this is the manner with which Corona is vowing to do battle for his post. And think of what he has laid himself open to…

With the quicksilver turn of events, with the cut to the chase, so unlike how it was during the previous administration when steps toward accountability were blocked with aggressive legerdemain or downright repression (recall Executive Order No. 464, which forbade officers of the executive branch from testifying at formal inquiries without Arroyo’s express permission), it is important for attentive observers to keep their eye on the issues. Discern the demagoguery, imagined or real. It may be that we are inching toward radical change; it may be that we are entertaining too high a hope.

Let it be a step toward what Edward Said once wrote as something to be devoutly wished: “a change in the moral climate whereby … the recognition of rights and freedoms is established as a norm for everyone, not invidiously for a select few.”