Lantern of lie

One, for a week or so before last Monday, the defense had been hyping the turn of events it promised the impeachment would take. It was going to make its big push, it was going to blow the prosecution’s case sky-high. Renato Corona was going to cross the Rubicon, he was going to risk all to tell all. But before that, the defense was going to crush the Ombudsman, Conchita Carpio Morales, and the other people who had the temerity to say its client had $10 million in the bank. Watch out for the fireworks.

What fireworks? Serafin Cuevas wasted a few more hours of my life, and that of the country, doing as he always did: raising technicalities. Whether Morales was a hostile witness, whether Corona could be likened to the accused in a case, whether Morales was entitled to obtain information about foreign currency deposits, whether Morales understood that her testimony had nothing to do with the articles of impeachment (a surreal moment since the defense was the one that asked her to be subpoenaed to begin with), whether the ombudsman had jurisdiction over the chief justice. I was nearly tempted to switch to Cartoon Network to improve my mind.

What remotely resembled fireworks came not from them but from Morales herself. Before the day was over, something did blow—in their faces. That was in the form of Morales tracing the flow of Corona’s dollars.

It was awesomely detailed. Unfazed by Cuevas’ legal browbeating, Morales went on to show the ebb and flow of foreign currency in Corona’s accounts. Corona in fact, she said, did not currently have $10 million in the bank, he had $12 million.

In 2003, before Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appointed him associate chief justice, he had only one dollar account. That ballooned over the years. A couple of years later, he had 23. In 2009, he had 63. By the time Arroyo appointed him Chief Justice, while P-Noy waited for his inauguration as President-elect, he had 81. He added one more last year, giving him a total of 82 deposits worth $12 million.

The ebb was more interesting than the flow. The withdrawals amounted to $30.7 million. “The withdrawal is bigger than the inflow simply because… these are the transactions captured by the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council).” That is to say that if the dollar accounts were to be opened, we might see something far more mind-boggling.

Which brings us to the question: Why ever not?

At the very least, an impeachment court is not a criminal court. At stake is not the freedom of the impeached, it is the wellbeing of the nation. The point is fitness for the position. The point is pagkatao. The equation is not that if the chief justice cannot enjoy the protection of privacy in his foreign currency deposits, then nobody can. The equation is that if the chief justice himself is corrupt, or engaging in money laundering, then everybody can.

At the very most, that’s the only thing that will settle the argument. You can debate whether these millions exist or not till you’re blue in the face and get nowhere. All you’ll get is a “he said, she said” kind of thing, although the public won’t have problems knowing whom to believe if you reduce everything to a matter of credibility. Corona has been insistent those millions do not exist. He has been insistent he has nothing to hide. He has been insistent he would bare everything.

If so, then read our lips: Open those accounts.

Two, Corona is furious and says Morales has trotted out a “lantern of lies.” She should resign if they prove her wrong.

Well, to begin with, I’ve heard of “tangle of lies,” “thicket of lies,” and “web of lies,” but this is the first time I’ve heard of “lantern of lies.” It may be alliterative but it’s also oxymoronic, giving whole new meanings to the combination of light and shadow. It gets more surreal by the day. But that’s another story.

Why am I not surprised? I did say last Monday that the defense’s tack in attacking the $10 million—or now $12 million—will be the same one as its tack in attacking the houses the prosecution claimed Corona owned. That will be to dispute the actual amount the way the defense disputed the actual number of houses. The proposition being that if Corona merely owns half the amount Morales claims, the way he owned “only” a dozen houses instead of two dozens, the prosecution’s case falls, he’s off the hook.

Why so? Who the hell cares if you own $999,000 instead of $10 million, or $111,999 instead of $12 million? That makes you guilty only of what your friends in the Senate felicitously call a “non-impeachable offense”? That entitles you to cling to your position the way your master did? It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality, stupid. And in any case, it’s the easiest thing to show the real amounts. The $10 million—or $12 million—does not exist? You have nothing to hide? You will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God if that is the party you expect to help you?

Still, read our lips: Open those accounts.

As to Morales resigning if she is proven wrong, I did say as well that Corona and her boss like to call others corrupt, power-mad, and kapit-tuko. Corona himself should have resigned from his position the very day he accepted it from someone who was not in a position to give it. And who had to hide it from public view the same way she hid her inauguration from public view by holding it an hour when only the cicadas could chirp their disapproval. I know it’s oxymoronic that Corona should have resigned the day he was appointed, but he’s the embodiment of oxymoronic. Come to think of it, his own phrase fits him to a “T,” the very light of justice shrouded in the shadow of a fake appointment:

Lantern of lie.