Youth’s frustration with Corona

I read with interest the Young Blood piece of Denise G. Banaag titled “Just truth” (Inquirer, 3/13/12) because it expressed the youth’s frustration with the machinations of Chief Justice Renato Corona and his lawyers, as well as of the Supreme Court, which are clearly intended to hide the truth regarding the many charges that had been leveled against him.

Corona’s lawyers have employed all kinds of legal tricks in the hope of getting an acquittal. They are delaying his trial and goading the public and the senator-judges into boredom with their repetitious objections and with “irrelevant” testimonies like that of Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco.

But we cannot begrudge the likes of retired Justice Serafin Cuevas for earning their fat lawyer’s fees, notwithstanding their claims of serving Corona pro bono. But as Banaag wrote: “Look, CJ Corona, Your Honor, we don’t want your money. We don’t want your perorations, we don’t want your photo ops. All we want from you is the truth.”

Banaag speaks for all of us. The people want the truth on Corona’s millions of pesos in bank deposits which he did not declare in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth. We want the truth on Corona’s dollar accounts which he hides through a temporary restraining order issued by his Supreme Court. We want the truth on his undervalued and/or undeclared properties like the posh condominium units which no justice, not even the head of the Supreme Court, can legally afford on his salary.

Any other offer of evidence by Corona’s counsels like Tiangco’s comical testimony would be diversionary and contemptuous, a waste of time and a mockery of the truth.

—JEFF JACINTO,  jeffjacinto@hotmail.ph