The harder he thrashes

Renato Corona accuses P-Noy of several things. One, P-Noy sent emissaries to bully him into resigning. Two, P-Noy caused him to be impeached because he voted against Hacienda Luisita. Three, P-Noy caused him to be impeached because he voted against the Truth Commission. Four, P-Noy is so power-hungry he wants total control of the three branches of government.

All the accusations reek of irony. They do not damn the accused, they damn the accuser. They do not exude sadism, they exude masochism. They are not an exercise in vilification, they are an exercise in self-vilification.

The first, an accusation Danilo Suarez and his bunch of creeps in Congress want to investigate, is silly. At the very least, it proposes that Corona is so deeply ensconced in his position as chief justice he needs to be bullied to give up his post. Or indeed that he needs to be offered carrot apart from stick, or the enticement of power-sharing apart from the threat of being humiliated in public, to be pried loose from it. In fact, no crown has hung more loosely than on Corona’s head.

Why on earth should P-Noy want to entice or intimidate him? Corona is a midnight appointee. He was appointed to his position by one who did not have the legal or moral authority to do so. He was appointed to his position by one who stole the vote. From the start, P-Noy had refused to recognize him, scorning him in public appearances and even berating him at one point. If Corona had any shred of kahihiyan, or indeed if he truly had any malasakit for the judiciary, he would have resigned long ago, demanding only that the selection for the next—or real—chief justice be done by an independent body.

At the very most, who has shown a predilection to oppress the weak and powerless—P-Noy or Corona (and Gloria)? Who has snatched a victory that flight attendants won three times in court from them? Hell, who has shoved a gun to the head of an uncooperative caretaker?

The second accusation Corona has sprung again and again, and gotten nowhere. For obvious reasons: It’s not believable. The suggestion is that P-Noy is either greedy enough to want to cling to a family fortune or petty enough to take its rejection as cause for unleashing a war of attrition. The first is silly. Hacienda Luisita is not an Ali Baba treasure; other perhaps in the sentimental sense, it is a losing proposition. If P-Noy were as materialistic as Corona suggests, he won’t lack for scams to sink his teeth into, as Corona’s favorite non-president has shown. The second is sillier. No president has been more serious about fighting corruption, a thing Gloria’s camp has tacitly recognized by accusing him of being single-minded about it. In this country more than any other, a burning desire to stamp out corruption is not the mark of pettiness.

Corona wants to see greedy and petty, he need not look farther than the mirror. Or indeed at the person behind him. You can’t get any greedier and pettier than selling helicopters you’ve worn out from overuse to the police at brand-new prices, or overprices. You can’t get greedier and pettier than clinging to a presidency you stole. You can’t get greedier and pettier than clinging to the position of chief justice you stole.

The third accusation Corona has sprung less often, and gotten even less than nowhere. It’s not just silly, it’s hilarious. Corona’s justification for rejecting the Truth Commission is that it’s discriminatory, it singles out Gloria Arroyo for prosecution. That reminds me of Ramon Revilla’s reaction to the proposal to encourage the making of good movies by giving them incentives in the form of tax cuts. It’s discriminatory, Revilla protested. It discriminates against bad movies.

The Truth Commission discriminates against Arroyo? But of course it does. But of course it should. Who else stole the vote in 2004? Who else unleashed a culture of impunity where political activists were routinely “salvaged” and murderers routinely promoted? Who else mounted a regime that rivaled Marcos’ own? Elsewhere in the world, hounding the person who did that is not called discrimination, it’s called justice. You’d think a chief justice would know that.

The last accusation takes the cake. It’s an accusation that has been leveled at P-Noy not just by Corona but by the entire Arroyo camp, including their allies in the media. It’s the most hilarious thing of all. At the very least, that is so because who most fits the description of being power-mad they’ll do everything in their power to acquire power and keep it? Who most fits the description of being prone to seize power and use it to oppress the people? Who are the people who stole the vote and accepted a midnight appointment to get to where they were or are? Who are the people who clung, and cling, to their position with a shamelessness that puts Epoxy to shame? That’s just self-condemnation.

At the very most, how did P-Noy come into power? By being a reluctant candidate, by going against the wishes of family who thought their family had sacrificed enough, it was time other people pitched in and ran for president. By having a healthy respect for power, heaven forbid he lost his head over it, heaven forbid he stayed longer than his term, or craving for personal space, bid him do. How has P-Noy used power? By being a resolute President. By going farther than his predecessors have done in fighting corruption, he has taken on the corrupt system itself and gone after the people that have propped it up. P-Noy is not trying to steal the power that belongs to Corona for himself, he is trying to give back the power Corona stole from the people to the people.

It’s a cesspool Corona finds himself in.

The more he thrashes, the more he sinks.