Corona camp playing dirty

I admire Solita Monsod for her trenchant commentaries particularly on economic issues. But I beg to disagree with her views in her Jan. 21 column, “Do it the right way” where she said, “just because I think he (Corona) does not deserve to be Chief Justice does not mean that I am willing to sit by while his opponents play dirty in trying to oust him from office.”

Monsod obviously does not realize that it is Corona who has been playing dirty all the while. In at least two instances, he used the resources, time and energy of the Supreme Court for his own defense against impeachment. He mobilized an obviously hakot crowd to shout slogans at the top of their lungs during regular office hours when they should be doing their job, which is to decide cases and unclog the court dockets of pending cases. If Supreme Court officials and employees would continue to be used—misused would be a better word—to shout hosannas for Corona at every opportunity, what will happen to our justice system?

Corona’s dirty tricks extend to his legal team. His lead counsel, Serafin Cuevas, has objected to every piece of evidence presented by the prosecution, thus delaying the proceedings no end. At the rate Cuevas is raising objections to every move by the prosecution, I doubt if the trial will be over in a hundred years. Cuevas is said to be a good law professor in his heyday, but obviously his forte is Dilatory Legal Tactics 101.

And if Monsod thinks Corona is being subjected to “trial by publicity,” she has only to look around to find out that President Aquino is himself being demonized no end by Corona’s—and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s—apologists in and out of media. Corona’s mob of black shirts has been unleashed not only in the premises of the Supreme Court, but also in a number of media outlets.

—JACQUELINE KATE IGNACIO, [email protected]