Still, TKO
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?”
By that he meant that the defense had been repeatedly reminded by the senator-judges and the presiding officer himself that the impeachment court was the ultimate arbiter of an impeachment and only the senator-judges could make a motion for reconsideration. Not the defense nor the prosecution. Having no other way to be heard, the defense had asked the Supreme Court to make a ruling.
The situation presented no small irony. At the very least, it was the perfect reminder to the public of how they themselves stood before the courts, not least the Supreme Court. Or at least the part of the public that was not rich and powerful, who are the overwhelming majority. The belief that there is no justice to be gotten from the courts, or indeed from law itself, is richly earned. If you are poor and powerless, you’ll always find yourself in a situation of being a cornered rat—I don’t know that cats are ever cornered. You’ll always find yourself in a position where you’ll cry out, “Where else can I go?”
Traditionally, they’ve turned only to two things. First is to God, or the church, or to prayer, whichever brings more efficacious results. Lest they turn positively violent or murderous.
Second, and quite luminously on two occasions, is to themselves, or to the power invested in them by a democracy. They have turned to People Power. It’s no small irony that Miriam Defensor-Santiago prefaced the defense’s decision to go to the Supreme Court by trying to prevail upon the impeachment court not to open Corona’s bank accounts. Despite having proposed at the beginning of the trial, which made me think she had finally developed a good learning curve, that the court would do well to learn from what happened at the Erap trial. You prevent such things as a second envelope from being opened, you spark a revolt.
At the very most, the defense’s tack was the perfect context for appreciating what the Supreme Court had done to the flight attendants of PAL. The defense’s call for the Supreme Court to make a ruling on Corona’s bank accounts came on the same day Fasap president, Bob Anduiza, testified on the Supreme Court’s decision to reopen a case it had ruled upon with finality three times in their favor.
Reopening a shut case, or a case it has ruled upon with finality, is in fact the Supreme Court’s far more subtle and vicious version of reducing the poor and powerless to a state of even more poverty and powerlessness. What it means is putting the rich and powerful in a position where they will never cease to have any recourse to reverse a ruling against them. Or it will put them in a position where they never have to say, “Where else can we go?” They can always go to the justices where, in consideration of several million heroes, Jose Rizal or George Washington, they can wrest victory from defeat.
Conversely, it means making people like the flight attendants feel like cornered rats, having to ask heaven, “Where can we go to get justice?”
Two, last week, while the impeachment court grilled PSBank president Pascual Garcia III, and shortly before the Supreme Court issued its TRO on Corona’s dollar accounts, some 7,000 people rallied in support of Corona in Padre Faura. They carried placards that said, “No to Impeachment,” “Uphold Judicial Independence,” “Uphold bank secrecy law” and “Stop Malacañang takeover of the Judiciary.”
While it would have been heartening to know that ordinary folk have now become passionate about judicial independence and bank secrecy, the fact was that most of the demonstrators came from the Iglesia ni Cristo. Some 20 placards were nearly identical or came from the same source and they cheered lustily when an INC member led in the praying. It’s a good reminder of how things were during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s time when the Catholic Church defended her to the death, one of its bishops even saying, “Everybody cheats anyway” in answer to “Hello Garci.” It’s enough to make heathens out of decent Filipinos.
It’s a good reminder of something even more vital, which is what happens when some of this country’s highest officials try to hide the truth or when they conscript the law to defeat justice. It was in January that People Power II took place and it was in February that People Power I did. The second we will be celebrating in two weeks’ time. That celebration ought to take special meaning in light of the Supreme Court’s TRO. That celebration ought to take special resonance in light of the TRO’s resemblance to the “second envelope.” That celebration ought to take a special spirit in light of People Power’s continuing possibilities.
I don’t know that People Power need be confined to ousting tyrants and usurpers. It can always be used to right wrongs, to remind the world that democracy flows from the will of the people. People Power does not impede representative democracy, it complements it—or so in countries like ours where the people are excluded from political life other than through elections.
Corona’s supporters want to rally in support of him? Well and fine. But there’s People Power as well to show what the rest of this country thinks about him, about the justices who have decided to circle wagons around him, about the TRO they have issued for him. This Feb. 25 would be an especially good time to be heard. Specifically by massing at the Edsa Shrine, or Padre Faura, or the Senate, and shouting the familiar words of a people who have had enough: “Sobra na, tama na, tigilan na!”
The answer to TRO is still TKO.
