Country’s highest magistrate setting lowest standard

“The Constitution did not say that we should use…a higher standard because he is the head of the Judiciary. There are no clear guidelines…on how to fill up all the entries in the SALN form.”  This argument in defense of Chief Justice Renato Corona begs to lower the standard of scrutiny applied to his “dodgy” substandard statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).

When there are “no-clear-guidelines,” an opportunity to proceed by a higher or lower standard presents itself. Corona chose the lowest hardly legal standard of declaring SALNs. This is confirmed by his own defense tact: that his SALN conformed to the “existing practice” of many other government officials. Need I argue that the “existing practice” of (omissions, undervaluation, hoarding a nation’s wealth) is an abhorred infernal standard we have been struggling to abandon?

A substandard SALN adds a protective layer of time to the armor of corruption that can spell the difference between a hold-departure order and a blissful non-extradition country. Finding public/private documents of undeclared wealth and properties may take investigators weeks or months to find, and perhaps, say, in the case of an old oppressed nun like Sister Flory Basa, a lifetime. The “existing practice” is a paradise of the corrupt. And the defense’s “existing practice” tact classifies Corona with the corrupt.

Look, the profound difference (and test) between a trustworthy official and a thief pretending to be trustworthy is that when called to comply with an evolving law with no clear guidelines, the former will seek the higher standard and the latter will go for the lower.

Corona, the highest magistrate of the land, is essentially representing, advocating and modeling for the lowest possible, sewer-level standard of compliance with the law in clinging to his “dead-of-night” appointment. Thus, reading between the standards that people adhere to, I find we have a Judiciary run by a thief.

—ERNIE LAPUZ,

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