Flunkers

The University of Santo Tomas says it’s not true at all that it broke its own rules to give Renato Corona a doctorate, summa cum laude. It went strictly by the book. Though it could very well have given Corona the PhD with the corresponding honors—it is empowered to grant degrees to people “whose relevant work experiences, professional achievements and stature, (etc.) are deemed equivalent to the academic requirements for such degrees”—but it ruled to make Corona go through the grinder. In fact, Corona himself insisted on it.

Just as well, though it could have exempted Corona from a thesis, UST insisted he write one. He did. “The quality and relevance of his paper, his answers to the questions raised during the public forum, and the eventual publication of his paper were all evaluated and for which he was given the necessary credits equivalent to a dissertation.”

Well, first off, the fact that UST even entertained the possibility that Corona might have been conferred an honorary degree on grounds of his accomplishments must suggest the quality of mind of the people who sat in judgment over him. It’s particularly unfortunate that it cites Naty Crame Rogers, to whom it gave a doctorate in literature for her work in theater, as precedent. Rogers and Corona exist on the same plane? Rogers’ accomplishments are there for all the world to see. What has Corona done other than to accept a midnight appointment from a fake president?

Everything goes downhill from there. If you can see accomplishments where there are none, you can see excellence where there is none. Where is Corona’s thesis? Where is his brilliant piece of legal cogitation to bedazzle the world? Where has it been published? Or where is it lurking right now, awaiting, or avoiding, publication?

The way things are, UST might have done better giving Corona a doctorate summa cum laude in commerce for relevant work experiences and professional achievements in that respect. That is what he had done to the Supreme Court, given it the rich trappings of commerce.

UST can defend itself all it wants, but it will not get out of this unscathed. This is not a great way to mark 400 years of existence, the celebration of which culminates this month. This episode can only remind us that a great deal of the period UST went through in its lifetime was awash in religious obscurantism fomented by the friars. Or this episode can only remind us of T.S. Eliot’s famous lines in “The Hollow Men”: “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”

But it’s more than this. Let us grant, however it strains credulity, that Corona got his doctorate with highest honors from UST by due diligence and acuity. What of it?

We do not lack for people who did exceptionally brilliantly in law school, displaying erudition in all matters legal. We do not lack for people who topped the bar exams, along with toppling every bottle in the bar, and went on to found their own prodigious houses, or firms, the kind with red bricks for their façade, or its counterpart in these more tropical parts. We do not lack for people, particularly in both houses of Congress, who can perorate on the legal aspects of an issue and do so at the slightest provocation, or lack of it, loving not just the opportunity for exhibition but the sound of their own voices. We do not lack for law schools. We do not lack for law. We do not lack for lawyers.

What we lack is justice.

What all this law has produced in this country is a tremendous lawlessness. What all these lawyers have produced in this country is tremendous injustice. Even the Western countries of course have formidable houses or firms that pride themselves with their legal acumen, or their ability to win cases, or their ability to keep their clients out of jail, whichever comes first, or more profitably. But on the whole, justice, however imperfect it is, still manages to be the end product of the juridical system. Here, that doesn’t seem to be the case. In practice, law exists in direct opposition to justice. In practice, lawyers exist in direct opposition to philosophers and sages.

We do not lack for lawyers with intellectual abilities, what we lack are lawyers with moral intelligence. We do not lack for judges who can cite no end of legal precedents, what we lack are judges who can grasp no end of social consequences. We do not lack for justices who deserve to have graduated summa cum laude from law schools, what we lack are justices who deserve to pass, never mind with honors, in the school of life.

There are exceptions of course. Ka Pepe Diokno topped the bar and accounting exams in the same year, a feat that hasn’t been equaled, but he spent his life using law (and accounting) to defend the oppressed, to champion the oppressed, to assuage the distressed. He used his talents, in full display academically, to make sure that justice particularly during martial law did not become merely academic.

But the rule is people like Corona. I don’t know that he got his doctorate from UST fair and square. I don’t particularly care. I do know that he did not get his position as chief justice fair and square, getting into the robes of the wisest of the wise by being wa-is, or by the most benighted means possible. I do know that he has not used the powerful position of the chief justice by advancing the cause of the powerless, using it instead nearly exclusively to champion the cause of one of this country’s greatest oppressors. I do know that the day he faces the ultimate Chief Justice of this life, who are the people, and the ultimate Chief Justice of the afterlife, who is St. Peter, they, if not the senators who will hear him out in his impeachment, will weigh him and find him wanting.

And flunk him.