‘Hollow men’

What makes the embattled 23rd Supreme Court chief tick? Renato Corona testifies before the impeachment court today—finally. Will we glimpse the tragedy of hollow men?

For seven weeks, Corona used text messages, press releases and speeches to parry charges. Now the Chief is gung-ho, the defense crows. Simulation drills or “scenario building” closed chinks in their man’s armor of a thousand-and-one legal quibbles.

In this trial, “legal technicalities (took) precedence against all other considerations—in the name of law,” notes Melba Padilla Maggay from the Institute for Studies in Church and Culture. The system is “stacked up against … prying (for) the truth.”

Corona holds up “memory of the dictatorship… as a specter,” Maggay adds. “Ferdinand Marcos Jr., scion of the strongman, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago, erstwhile staunch ally of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, make solemn noises about their fears of the ‘unbridled powers’ of the ombudsman.” Judges can be hollow men too.

The “capo” will shred charges of P677 million in unexplained wealth, the defense predicts. He won’t even work up a sweat to explain a P36.7 million “discrepancy” between his pay envelope and his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

Iglesia ni Cristo covertly badgered senator-judges to spring Corona, Inquirer reported. Rep. Niel Tupas derailed, on March 20 last year, an INC campaign to jettison the impeachment raps against then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. But she bailed out.

Court employees pray for Corona and family. So does Franciscan Sr. Flor Maria Basa, who entered the convent 65 years back. The nun learned that the Manila City government paid P34 million for their ancestral Basa-Guidote estate. Corona’s daughter bagged estate shares for P28,000. Who pocketed my inheritance, 90-year-old Sister Flory must be wondering.

Citizens seek direct replies to the Anti-Money Laundering Council report and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ testimony. That’d help get a “feel” if Corona measures up to the office.

“Do not cry, Pepito,” the fifth chief justice comforted his son, before facing a Japanese firing squad in Lanao del Sur on May 2, 1942. Jose Abad Santos refused to collaborate. “It is an honor to die for one’s country,” he said. “Not everybody has that chance.”

All have the chance to live for one’s country though. Remember Anita Carpon, President Gloria Arroyo’s manicurist? Before leaving Malacañang, Arroyo signed hundreds of midnight appointments, including Carpon’s directorship in Pag-Ibig Fund. “No,” said Carpon to the two-year sinecure with P120,000 in monthly paycheck.

Vatican Ambassador Manuel Moran also declined outgoing President Elipidio Quirino’s offer of a Supreme Court seat. Delicadeza dictated that President-elect Ramon Magsaysay be allowed to appoint his choice to the vacant position.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference,” poet Robert Frost wrote in 1920. Corona signed on as chief justice after Benigno Aquino III became president-elect. Hollow men prefer that oft-traveled road.

“When the president-elect is known, the authority of the incumbent is only to ensure orderly transfer of power,” Ateneo’s Joaquin Bernas wrote. If Arroyo insists on naming a chief justice, she courts the possibility that Congress would impeach him. That has come to pass.

Corona appears before the impeachment court as “de facto” chief justice, in Sen. Rene Saguisag’s words. Yesterday’s choice crippled today’s moral authority. No “scenario building” will close that abyss in values. “O, call back yesterday, bid time return,” Richard II screamed— to no avail.

Kung ano ang binhi, siya ang bunga, old folk say. “What the seed is, so is the fruit.” However the impeachment court rules, hollow men will gag on tomorrow’s fruit. Unfortunately, the “what if” question is asked late.

What if Ferdinand Marcos didn’t deteriorate into a kleptocrat? Suppose he ignored Imelda? Imagine if he used martial power with the austere integrity of Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew.  We’d be among today’s economic tigers. A grateful people would have interred Marcos in Libingan ng mga Bayani. Today, he molders in a Batac cold storage instead.

What if Benigno Aquino Jr. buckled? Suppose Ninoy settled for a cushy slot in the dictatorship? He’d have left cronies in his dust, but would be dwarfed. Corazon Aquino would not have led People Power—that sparked Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution,” Lebanon’s “Cedar Uprising” and Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolt.” Benigno III would be a balding bachelor, not the Republic of the Philippines’ 15th president.

What if Joseph Estrada honored his “Now power is with the people” pledges? People Power II would not have erupted. Erap would not have entered history books as the first convicted president.

What if President Arroyo kept her Rizal Day pledge not to seek reelection? She would not have dialed to say: “Hello Garci.” There would have been no Ampatuan town massacre or midnight appointments like the ones made for the Chief Justice and a Malacañang gardener.

Instead, Arroyo faces trial for election sabotage and plunder. “Not a stone will be left upon a stone because you did not know the time of visitation,” the Galilean master said. That is the tragedy of hollow men.

Thomas More refused to play patsy to Henry VIII’s divorce. Like Jose Abad Santos, More was executed. A student betrayed him to govern the backward Celtic fiefdom of Wales. Hollow men cringe at More’s question: “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?”

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