Most Filipinos still interested in outcome of Corona’s trial

I wonder how Amando Doronila reached the conclusion that public “interest in the (Corona) trial has waned after eight weeks, with many people expressing trial fatigue and starting to ask what is the relevance of the trial—which has so exercised the passion of the political class—to the daily lives of common citizens and the poor.” (“A lost decade?” Inquirer, 3/20/12)

As I see it, Filipinos are very much interested in the outcome of the trial, as shown by the latest Pulse Asia survey where 47 percent of the respondents said Chief Justice Renato Corona is guilty, 5 percent found him innocent, while 43 percent said they are undecided. Add up all these figures and you get 93 percent, meaning, only 7 percent do not have any opinion at all or totally not interested in the trial. Doronila’s conclusion is therefore pure speculation and not grounded in reality.

I do not believe Doronila’s contention that the Aquino administration is too focused on the trial and running after corrupt officials of the previous administration, such that he has neglected the economy and dissipated government resources in the anticorruption campaign.

The World Bank report that Doronila cited is very clear: President Aquino’s economic team has managed to put in place strong economic fundamentals in the past one-and-a-half years, and part of the reason for this is that the government is committed to good governance.

I don’t see either what Doronila described as “dissipation of government resources and efforts in the anticorruption campaign.” All the government departments and agencies are doing their assigned jobs. It is the Supreme Court that has seemingly stopped all work and done nothing except mount rallies in support of their beleaguered Chief Justice.

If P-Noy has made fighting corruption the top priority of his administration, it is because this is the key to poverty reduction. Without a serious anticorruption campaign, the government’s scant resources will only go to the pockets of the corrupt instead of serving the poorest of the poor. By waging war on corruption, which diverts almost a fourth of the annual national budget to private pockets, P-Noy has shown that he is determined to reduce the ranks of the poor, and not merely to see the likes of Gloria Arroyo and Renato Corona, the face of brazen corruption in this country, go scot-free to  continue stealing from the national coffers again and again.

—ALJON SERNA,

aljon_rift@hotmail.ph