Right mind

One, Renato Corona had an interesting reaction to P-Noy last week. In the interests of truth and transparency, he proposed, why doesn’t the President reveal his psychological profile to us? “We have an obligation to show the people that we are of sound mind.”

Well, as far as I know, P-Noy laid that accusation to rest during the campaign. The Jesuit who was alleged to have raised psychological issues against him denied having done so. In any case, said P-Noy, he did labor under depression in Boston during the family’s exile and especially after his father was murdered. Who wouldn’t?

That was what convinced me he was perfectly sane. It’s a Catch-22 thing. People who act sane in the most insane conditions are normally insane. You see that in the Nazi scientists who tried very scientifically to figure out the most efficient way to dispose of hundreds of millions of Jews, and found it in the gas chamber. And people who are unsettled in the most unsettling conditions are normally sane. You do not show signs of depression when you are forced into exile and your father is brutally murdered, you need to see somebody.

Public officials do have an obligation to show the public they serve that they are of sound mind. Nothing does that better than the way they act. Sane is as sane does. Sound mind is as sound mind does.

Which brings us to: If you’re of sound mind, would you accept a midnight appointment from Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to become Chief Justice?

You’re the one person this country presumes to know the law inside and out, and you don’t know the Constitution forbids a president from making a midnight appointment? She can’t appoint the janitor of the lowest court but she can appoint the chief of the Supreme Court? But just as well, you aspire to an office presumed to harbor only the wisest among the wise, and you don’t know that being appointed that way by the basest of the base makes you the lowest of the low?

Corona wants psychological profiles, he should have asked for the psychological profile, not of P-Noy, but of Gloria. In fact, never mind psychological profiles, he should just have asked Gloria’s siblings what they thought of her mental state. In fact, never mind asking, he should just have looked at the pictures of his boss with the Hannibal Lecter contraption wrapped around her head.

Again, if you’re of sound mind, would you think you can still serve as Chief Justice even if your pals in the Senate acquit you? When pretty nearly all Filipinos know you lied in your SALNs, have tens of millions of pesos and dollars in the bank, and have a fetish for houses the way Imelda has for shoes?

I did wonder about that, why Corona persists in defying all odds despite surely knowing he can’t possibly go back to the Supreme Court whatever the outcome of this trial might be. Until it dawned on me that this isn’t about him, this is about his boss. At the very least, the longer this takes, the safer his boss remains, or the longer he can help her keep her own trial at bay. At the very most, he gets acquitted, he makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use P-Noy’s own words, for government to get to his boss. Either way, he gets to pay back what he owes his benefactor. He might be ruined career-wise, but he’ll live comfortably the rest of his life.

In chess, the queen sacrifice is the ultimate sacrifice, being offered to protect the king, if not indeed win the game. In this game, the king sacrifice is the ultimate sacrifice, being offered to protect the queen, if not indeed win the game. Corona’s name particularly fits the part. There’s method in the madness, but it’s madness nonetheless.

Two, I got asked by a TV station what I thought of the argument that the defense is resorting to everything to protect the human rights of the individual. Corona deserves the best possible defense, as does any citizen, and legal technicalities are part of the game.

I said I agreed that individual rights do need protecting to the max. I myself had written in the past denouncing national security as a reason to infringe on civil liberties or human rights. Between one and the other, I’d always go for the other.

But this trial is not about whether Corona is guilty or innocent of rape or murder. This trial is about whether he is fit to remain Chief Justice or not. This trial is not about whether he deserves to remain free or not. This trial is about whether the citizens deserve to have the best possible officials or not.

What needs protecting to the max here are the human rights of the citizens. Or their right to have decent rulers, a Chief Justice chief of them. Nothing is more insane than the kind of culture we have, which rioted like weeds in an untended garden during Arroyo’s time, and which says the kind of public officials we deserve are not those possessed of the most sterling qualities but those we cannot prove to have stolen the vote, robbed the country blind, and punished the good and rewarded the wicked. Which we cannot prove because they own the courts, they decree the law, they represent justice.

Indeed, nothing is more insane than perpetuating that culture by insisting, as the impeachment court does, that it is not enough to show that Corona lied in his SALNs and owns more houses than he can afford—the prosecution is banned from talking about his ill-gotten wealth by failing to have expressly included it in the articles of impeachment—he has to be found guilty of an “impeachable crime,” whatever that means, before he can be kicked out.

What, we deserve to have as chief dispenser of justice someone who is thoroughly dishonest so long as he is not thoroughly treasonous?

Is that being in the right mind?