In his own defense

The trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona promises to pick up pace with the Senate impeachment court’s acceptance of his bank records as evidence and his expressed determination to testify. The senator-judges’ consensus on the admissibility of the records serves as an assurance that what was presented by the prosecution in connection with Article 2 of the impeachment complaint – and disputed by the defense at every turn, for weeks on end, despite Philippine Savings Bank president Pascual Garcia’s acknowledgment that the bank accounts do exist, in the correct figures – will not be thrown out like useless clutter, as the defense has requested. With the senator-judges’ ruling, arrived at in a caucus on Tuesday, observers attentive to the peaks and valleys of the trial would note a distinct change in the behavior of the impeachment court, which has been largely proceeding as though it were an ordinary court subject to the rules that govern ordinary trials. It would seem like the senator-judges (minus Aquilino Pimentel III, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Manuel Villar, according to an unnamed senator) unanimously agreed to accept the bank records as evidence in an effort to—dare we say it?—save face. Or at least to lessen, in the eyes of the public, their puzzling diffidence toward the Supreme Court, which had not only temporarily restrained them from examining Corona’s dollar accounts but also struck down the possibility of its justices and personnel taking the witness stand.

(The impeachment court’s decision to merely admonish, and not penalize, private prosecutor Vitaliano Aguirre II is likewise a surprise, considering Santiago’s earlier insistence that he be punished for having the temerity to cover his ears while she was chewing out the prosecution in a particularly lengthy and nasty harangue. Ordered to explain, Aguirre had described Santiago as “shrill.” Stung, the Philippines’ representative to the International Criminal Court moved to have the man declared in contempt of court. The motion was formally and inexplicably seconded by Sen. Pia Cayetano; Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, as though insulted to his very core, said Aguirre’s demeanor was “very disrespectful” to the impeachment court. It has yet to be explained to the public whether Santiago’s behavior, complete with coarse language and aggravating theatrics, was not in itself an act of disrespect.)

Now the Chief Justice himself is saying that he is willing and prepared to testify, although he adds that his taking the witness stand will ultimately be on his lawyers’ say-so. Meanwhile, he has taken on a number of TV interviews, speaking of his and his family’s hurt feelings and of his suspicion that it was PSBank that had leaked his bank records. Taking his case directly to the public through TV is something that Corona appears partial to despite the venerable notion that chief justices are above such pedestrian moves. His on-air appearances yesterday approximate the radio-TV blitz he conducted in May 2010, when he was newly named to his post by the then outgoing president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in a “midnight appointment” that he took pains  to explain.

“I’m not a politician,” Corona was reported as saying then. “I don’t like appearing before the media but … it’s a good opportunity for me, like it or not, for the [people] to know me. They are entitled to know what kind of public official I am.” He also said he was not bothered by criticism of his appointment and of his close relationship with Arroyo whom he once served as chief of staff. “I will have eight years to prove many things about myself and what I can do for the country,” he said. Two months later, Corona was again seen and heard on air, this time assailing “certain sectors in the media who will not praise you for anything you do” and “whose business is just to attack and look for mistakes of the [Supreme Court] or its magistrates.”

Now the Chief Justice is presented the opportunity to personally defend himself at his impeachment trial; if and when, this will allow the public to take his full measure and decide for itself whether, in the face of charges of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution, despite the clear discrepancies between his sworn statements and the assets he has been found to own, he is morally fit to stay on at his post. He can do worse than grab the opportunity. No longer praise will he be seeking, but exoneration.