It has been a bruising battle that has put Rene Corona front and center no matter the effort of his Defense team to keep him on safer and less visible ground. From the beginning, the Chief Justice fought with a serious handicap – he was a midnight appointee who needed his cohorts in the Supreme Court to declare it was okay for him to be appointed and to accept the appointment. Lesson number One – the Supreme Court cannot make what is wrong in the eyes and the ethics of many as right by sheer rank and vested authority. Lesson number Two – the Supreme Court cannot convert the condemnation and sustained distrust of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by a vast majority of Filipinos. Lesson number Three – do not accept a bad appointment and think you can make it a good one.
Most agree that the Prosecution team has performed like a bunch of amateurs. Because I am not a lawyer, I could not adversely judge them for technical competence because I never understood what was technically right in the first place. But I could at least assess their charisma and impact on the audience – which included me. From that standpoint, I did make several wishes for a better performance. But whatever shortcomings the Prosecution team may have had, or still have, they performed well enough to keep a public already suspicious of Corona stay suspicious, even outrightly convinced of Corona’s guilt. That’s an achievement in its own right.
Most agree that the Defense team led by former Justice Serafin Cuevas was more seasoned. But experience and superior knowledge never convinced the public that these lawyers had more integrity than a Prosecution team deemed amateurish by many. In other words, whatever reputation they carried did little, or none at all, to raise the credibility of their client. Thus, at the end of the Prosecution’s stint in presenting their witnesses to support the charges levied against Rene Corona, in spite of the castigation they received from some senator judges for being amateurish at times, Corona did not stand taller, or cleaner. Even after the Defense began their own presentation of witnesses and the supposed-to-be deadly error of claiming more than forty properties as connected to Rene Corona and his wife when there were only five or six, the public continued to believe in the guilt of Corona. And his guilt? That he was appointed by Gloria so make sure she cannot get convicted of any crime, that she appointed him against the spirit and the letter of the law, that she, with Corona’s help, influenced a majority to declare the appointment was Constitutional, and that he, against the socially accepted standards of delicadeza and ethics, accepted the appointment. Lessons One, Two and Three.
It was crucial as well, beyond the opening jaundiced opinion of the public against Gloria and Corona, that bank accounts were revealed, that the peso deposits in just one bank were suspiciously more than what Corona could have earned and maintained, that dollar deposits were also revealed but which Corona, with his usual majority in the Supreme Court, was able to stop from being opened. It was as though what people suspected were affirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt – that Rene Corona was dirty.
Now, the Prosecution says in a quick turnaround that their client was willing to testify. They said that the move of the Ombudsman regarding dollar accounts and dollar amounts much, much more scandalous than his peso accounts, plus the giving of documents showing these dollar accounts and their amounts by certain personalities to the office of the Senate President have triggered the decision of the Chief Justice to take the stand. Ah, a long time coming, forced by circumstance.
Many speculate why Rene Corona suddenly wants to take the stand. I don’t believe anyone really knows why. I do not even know if Rene Corona will really explain the whole reason for his doing so. All I can say is this, that if he does not take the stand, even his allies in the Senate will find it hard not to convict him. Even if they say that public opinion does not count, it does. They are judges, yes, but their career is politics, their ambition is politics, and only the soon-dying may have a chance to truly go by the evidence for the sake of a legacy. Even then, their legacy will become a joke if and when the future reveals even more dirt in Corona’s life.
This is Corona’s last stand. I think he believes at this point that he will be convicted. He has, then, nothing more to lose. He may want to save his neck against all odds. He may want to salvage what he can to save the reputation that his family will inherit. He may even want to simply tell the truth, even if that truth is bitter.
It may not be Rene Corona the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that will testify and face his accusers. It may be Rene Corona the man who, in the greatest performance of his life, will have to convince the Filipino people of his decency, of his obligation as a father to protect his children at any cost, and in the face of his harshest challenge, of his courage to accept the consequences of his actions.
They say the truth will set one free. I do not know if Rene Corona believes that but I hope he does. It is impossible to erase mistakes already committed, but it is takes only a moment to cleanse one’s soul, and be a hero.