Starting point

Defense will defy Juan Ponce Enrile’s opinion that it’s irrelevant and show the SALNs of other government officials anyway.

“As much as we respect it, we believe in our way to defend the Chief Justice,” Tranquil Salvador said. “The prosecution or any other individual cannot dictate on us how we should present our case. The law gave us that guarantee.” The point is to show that it’s the “pattern and existing practice” of public officials to file SALNs the way Corona does. “Is the failure to submit a correct SALN an impeachable offense? In time, we will prove it’s not.”

What can I say? Go right ahead.

The ploy is just a variation of “Everybody cheats anyway.” It’s saying that if other people raped too, then rape is not a crime. Then rape is excusable. Then rape is acceptable.

It was the bishops during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s time that trotted out the line, “Everybody cheats anyway.” Therefore, cheating is not a crime. Therefore, cheating is excusable. Therefore Arroyo might remain in power.

By all means let the defense prove that other officials, including P-Noy’s, have falsified their SALNs. But two things need to be taken into account here.

The first is that size does matter. It does matter that you steal the presidency and not just the barangay captaincy. It does matter that you change the votes wholesale and not just tinker at the margins. It does matter that you pass off an Ali Baba treasure as a treasure trove of teks in the attic and not just try to get away with a few thousand pesos in property taxes off a crumbling ancestral house. Size does matter. Gravity does matter. The extent of the lie does matter.

Not everyone passes off his Bellagio unit as costing P3 million or so. Corona agrees to sell it to me for that price and I’ll borrow from all my kamag-anaks and friends, or take a loan from a bank since they’re poorer than me, and buy it from him this very instant. With a hundred bucks thrown in for the sentimental value he has attached to a property that was vastly discounted after being singled out by (Im)Providence for ravaging through a storm. Far more importantly, which is the one thing neither defense nor its friends in the Supreme Court want opened up but which bears epically on Corona’s financial worth, not everyone holds a fortune in dollars in the bank.

How much of a fortune? That we have yet to know. That we are not allowed to know. That we may never know. Where is hidden wealth likely to lie, in peso deposits or dollar ones? Where is corruption likely to lie, in peso deposits or dollar ones? But that too, we have yet to know, are not allowed to know, and may never know because the impeachment court bans any discussion of corruption and hidden wealth.

By all means let’s look into the other officials’ SALNs. But first let us look at Corona’s dollar accounts. To the extent that we do not know the extent of his wealth, we will not know the extent of his falsification. To the extent that we do not know the extent of his falsification, we will not know the extent of the “pattern and existing practice” of SALN declarations by public officials.

The second is that height does matter. What made the bishops’ defense of Arroyo particularly execrable was that they are the presumed guardians of morality, they are the self-proclaimed shepherds of a wayward flock. Hell, they are supposed to set an example. What makes Corona’s efforts to hide his wealth—you have to drag every bit of information through his clenched teeth, which can only suggest that the wealth is ill-gotten—is that he is the presumed font of wisdom, he is the designated arbiter of right and wrong. Hell, he is supposed to set an example. Height does matter. Loftiness does matter. The extent of the position does matter.

The failure to submit a correct SALN is not an impeachable offense? What idiocy is that? That brings us back to the same idiocy the impeachment court paraded before us when it trotted out the concept of the “impeachable offense.” The notion being that before the highest officials of the land can be removed, they must first commit a “high crime.” It is not enough that they are crooks, they must be pillagers. It is not enough that they are sexual harassers, they must be rapists. It is not enough that they shove a gun into a caretaker’s head, they must pull the trigger too. When common sense must tell us that the opposite is true: the higher the position, the higher the standards. It’s OK that a court employee loses her job and benefits for failing to include a wet market stall in her SALN, but not a Chief Justice who “merely” fails to reveal the true value of his properties?

Still while at this, the failure to submit a correct SALN is not an impeachable offense? It’s a freaking “jail-able” offense. What if everybody started falsifying their tax declarations on the ground that if the Chief Justice can do it, they can do it too? What if everybody justified it by saying, “I did not declare all my properties in my SALN because I thought I’d make it known in due time?” Or does the principle apply only to the Chief Justice and not anybody else?

Of other public officials who have falsified their SALNs, then let’s fire them too, where they are fire-able. Then let’s impeach them too, where they are impeachable. As with the proposition that everybody cheats anyway, the conclusion is not that it makes the one innocent, it is that it makes the others guilty. The conclusion is not that it’s a reason to continue to tolerate it, the conclusion is that it’s time to stop it. The conclusion is not that we ought to just let all of them go, it is that we ought to punish those we can prove to have done so.

There’s no better time to start than now. There’s no better thorn to start with than Corona.