Reminders

Juan Ponce Enrile is the biggest winner in Renato Corona’s impeachment trial. His approval rating soared to 71 percent, up by 11 points from late last year. So powerful has his impact been on the public consciousness that his son is reaping the benefits. Jackie Enrile, who carries his name, albeit with a “Jr.” at the end of it, and who has expressed a desire to run for senator next year, is one of those leading the pack.

The preferences for senatorial candidates themselves remain firmly anchored on traditional factors, chiefly recall and the candidates’ stint, current or ex, in the Senate. They include Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero, Mar Roxas, Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes, Gringo Honasan, Koko Pimentel, Miguel Zubiri, Jamby Madrigal, Rodolfo Biazon. It would be interesting to know, however, how the current senators’ vote to acquit or convict Corona would impact, if at all, on their standing. Specifically, would Legarda, Escudero, Honasan remain where they are if they should find Corona fit to continue to dispense justice as Chief Justice?

Or would that drag them down? Corona himself is the biggest loser in the impeachment trial. He has just joined his favorite non-president as one of the most distrusted persons in this country, if not on earth. His approval rating took a nosedive from 38 percent last November to 14 percent this year.

All this reminds us of three things.

The first is not so much a reminder as a revelation, or a shock of discovery. It reminds us that it is better to be lucky than able. Fortunately for Enrile—though the same thing cannot be said for the country—he is both.

Enrile in fact has got to be one of the luckiest guys on earth. Part of it, of course, is talent. As the chess grandmasters put it, the good player is always lucky. In Enrile’s case, the talent lies in his immense capacity to reinvent himself. He is a shrewd political survivor who has served under the most ideologically disparate, or even conflicting, regimes. He has served variously under Marcos, Cory (at least early on), Ramos, Erap, and Arroyo. And now he is serving under P-Noy. You’ve got to admire the guy, however grudgingly.

But an even greater part of it is just luck. He happened to be there when the RAM boys’ mutiny was discovered and the people rose to protect them. From being one of the chief architects of martial law—second in fact only to Marcos—he metamorphosed into a chief liberator from martial law. Enough for him to want to claim the crown for his own, and lead several coup attempts to seize it.

If one may argue that that wasn’t very dumb luck, it was a smart move to invent RAM to begin with, one may not do so the second time around. He happened to be the Senate president when the first chief justice was impeached. What are the odds of that? The role might as well have been scripted for him. He is a lawyer, he has a vast store of experience, apart from knowledge, behind him, he is the most senior of his fellows. The perfect presiding officer for an impeachment trial, a role he has been playing with gusto all this time. Overnight he has turned from someone who had sworn undying loyalty to Erap, Arroyo, and P-Noy to an independent-minded elderly statesman who has gone on legacy mode.

Is it a wonder he has slam-dunked on everyone? It’s a reminder as well that we’re one truly magic-realist country.

The second is that an impeachment is not a primarily juridical exercise, it is a political one. The senator-judges are not jurists, they are politicians. They do not go by the rule of law, they go by the rules of politics.

No trial can possibly have a worse judge. In an ordinary courtroom, any judge that has a relation to the accused or to the defense or the prosecution, or, worse, has a stake in the outcome of the case, will automatically be barred. It’s common sense: It’s conflict of interest. However fair-minded you are, if you are a cousin of the accused or if you are a friend of the murder victim, you won’t be able to judge fairly.

That’s what the senator-judges have: conflict of interest. And that’s what the senator-judges are: thoroughly compromised. They know the parties involved, they belong to political parties that have a stake in the outcome of the case, they have an eye on the elections. Whatever the admonitions of the defense and the presiding officer, and however the senator-judges themselves swear fervently they won’t be influenced by public opinion but will vote according to the evidence, they will be influenced by public opinion and will vote according to political calculation.

All of which is to remind us that at the end of the day, it is the people themselves who will decide this trial. Which is why it is essential that they get to have a reasonable basis for forming a judgment. A glimpse of the truth, first and foremost, something the defense isn’t allowing by boxing the proceedings into a legalistic framework. The irony there is that it’s not just not helping the public, it’s also not helping their client either. Look where he is now.

The third is simple. It’s a reminder that public office is a public trust. Why doesn’t Corona resign? His remonstrations that he is championing the independence and integrity of the judiciary can only make him more ridiculous, if not more distrusted. The obvious thing to do, if he’s really deeply concerned about the wellbeing of the Supreme Court, is to not drag it down with him, insisting only that the next chief justice—hard to say “successor,” given that the one thing he has in common with Arroyo is getting his post the crooked way—be designated by an independent body and not by Malacañang. All he does by clinging to power like a leech is to batter himself and the country.

But that’s the other thing he has in common with his boss.