Chief Justice Renato Corona claims that any attack on his character and integrity is at the same time an attack on the Judiciary. Ergo, by calling attention to his patent partiality and bias for his patron and benefactor, Gloria Arroyo, President Aquino attacks the integrity and independence of the entire Judiciary and therefore violates the Constitution.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
If P-Noy has rebuked Corona to his face, it’s because the Corona-led Court had deigned to cross the line and openly challenged the executive branch with the issuance of a TRO that allowed the Arroyo couple to flee abroad to avoid prosecution. Good thing that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima was astute enough to know the Arroyo couple’s dark designs and prevented them from leaving the country in the nick of time.
And if there’s someone who knowingly and willfully violated the Constitution, it’s none other than Corona himself for accepting his midnight appointment by Arroyo. We have a Chief Justice who does not know that the Constitution prohibits midnight appointments by the President—or pretends not to know that there is such a provision—and we have a surefire formula for conflicting and flip-flopping rulings by supposedly the best legal minds in the country.
Corona has called P-Noy a dictator as well for telling him what is wrong and what is right. This is the height of arrogance. It’s the same mindset that allowed another Arroyo appointee in the high court to berate De Lima for supposedly behaving as if she were “above the law” for ignoring the Nov. 15 TRO favoring the Arroyos. The justices of the Supreme Court are not gods who are infallible and can do no wrong even on questions of law; they are responsible, in the end, to the people whose will is sovereign.
Corona should stop muddling the issues and explain himself before the Senate, instead of using his position to attack the Executive and drag the whole government down the gutter with his irresponsible and supercilious statements reflective of a puny intellect.
—KRISTINE LAINE BERNISI,
kl.khuletz@gmail.com