One, still waxing stentorian after his acclaimed performance as presiding officer of the impeachment trial, Juan Ponce Enrile warned Renato Corona and his lawyers against attempting to reverse the impeachment court’s decision by way of the Supreme Court. “I will say this very frankly: If they (the Supreme Court) will question the jurisdiction of the impeachment court and reverse our decision, we will defy them. If they want a constitutional crisis in this country, they will have one.”
That’s not going to happen of course, if we go by Corona’s avowal that he won’t dispute the decision. But you never know. He can always do a last-minute turnaround and challenge it anyway by whatever legal ruse he can think of. After all, there’s still Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s prosecution to think about, and she needs all the legal protection she can get. Stranger things have happened. Who could have imagined Corona would go ahead and shoot himself in the head by stalking out of the court when he finally appeared in it and later admitting to a fortune that he never declared and paid taxes for? Neither he nor Arroyo is exactly known to stick to their word—walang isang salita, as the Tagalog puts it.
This is a magic-realist country, the most surreal things happen with astonishing regularity, chief of them method spontaneously springing from madness, and madness springing unexpectedly from method.
Realistically however, though that has never deterred the wisest men in this country, or those presumed to be so, from foolish behavior, Corona and his lawyers have no options left. Other than trusting in the awa culture—Corona has been humbled enough, he has been punished enough, leave him some shred of dignity—that has served the tyrants of this country well. Following the verdict of guilty, he has already gone on that mode, making noises, while in the pit of the hospital, about being resigned to enduring his personal calvary.
Aided in no small way by Jinggoy Estrada who says we need no longer hound the former chief justice. Estrada says he can understand how Corona feels at this time. He knows first-hand how painful it is to fall from power. What can I say? He may know first-hand how painful it is for someone to fall from the heights of power, having had a father who did; but we know first-hand how painful it is for us, for them to not do so. Enough of that kawawa naman sila, about time we started thinking kinawawa naman tayo, kawawa naman tayo.
The more interesting question is: Can Corona and Arroyo, who must feel the noose tightening around her own neck, spark some kind of constitutional crisis with a view to mounting an upheaval against government a la “Edsa III”? Norberto Gonzales and the other usual suspects have been making noises to that effect for some time now.
It will defy reason of course, but cornered rats seldom turn out to be reasonable. And defying reason has become a habit with the Arroyo-Corona clique. Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. So does P-Noy it seems. Whom he wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.
It could be contemplated, but it would be doomed. At the very least, when Erap’s camp launched “Edsa III,” he still retained a sizeable following among the masa despite being turned from hero to heel in his own impeachment trial, and that masa greatly minded seeing him dragged from his home, brought to a precinct and fingerprinted. There can be no underestimating the power of the awa culture, particularly for charismatic figures.
Unfortunately for Corona, and worse for Gloria, God wasn’t distributing charisma when they were born. Which is why it’s the strangest thing why anyone would propose that they try to melt people’s hearts by acting, Gloria by saying “I am sorry” and Corona by saying “I am hurt.” Their ability to elicit sympathy is nowhere to be found. Indeed to go by the surveys, which doomed Corona in the public’s eyes long before he ended up being so in the senator-judges’ eyes, Corona is next only to his boss as the most mistrusted public official in the land. While P-Noy is next only to his mother as the most trusted one. That is not an auspicious beginning from which to mount a political, or military, confrontation.
The only recruits Corona and Arroyo can rally to such a cause are the public officials who feel the noose tightening around their own necks. That was that camp’s veiled pitch to cohorts not just in government but in the private sector over the last few months: “If we go down, you go down.” That’s going to be less and less veiled over the next few days or weeks. Very likely, it will turn into the more pressing: “We’re down, you’re next. Unless we stop running and fight.”
But that’s what dooms the project before it can even start. That’s the very guarantee they’ll find the people on P-Noy’s side. Or conversely, that’s the very guarantee they’ll find the people on the opposite side of them. It will turn the battle into black and white, it will turn the battle into good vs. evil. Who but the corrupt, the ungodly, and the unprincipled will want to join a campaign that goes by the banner of the dirty finger? Who but the cynical, rotten, and depraved will want to join a crusade that goes by the Opportunist Manifesto:
“Screwers of the world, unite”?