Remove that crown of thorns

By Joel Rocamora
Secretary, National Anti-Poverty Commission

The language of the Corona impeachment is, of necessity, legal. The senators who sit in judgment will do their best to couch their opinions in legalese. Media commentators will try to catch up. But everyone knows that, in the end, it’s all about power and politics.

Law and the judicial system just happen to be the battlefield in this instance. The Corona impeachment is the single most important exercise of presidential power by President Aquino in the year and a half he has spent in office thus far.

The Corona impeachment is about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA). But only in that GMA has been the symbolic lynchpin of opposition to the reforms that the Aquino administration is currently undertaking. The trigger for impeachment was the Corona Supreme Court’s attempt to facilitate GMA’s escape from the clutches of the law. While there is still another case in the Supreme Court which could be used to spring GMA from prison, more likely she will remain there for some time. The battlefield has now shifted to Corona.

Corona’s designated role in GMA’s playbook was to use the Supreme Court to prevent her from going to prison. He has failed to do that. What’s at stake now is no longer whether GMA can be made accountable for her crimes. Corona is still being given a lot of importance by the Aquino administration because he, in turn, has become the lynchpin to reforming the Supreme Court. His well publicized clashes with PNoy, and the opportunity to shape the Court’s decisions as Chief Justice, have made Corona the de facto “last hope” of those who oppose administration reforms.

One of the more important lines of Corona’s defense is that the decisions for which he is being impeached are collegial, and that, therefore, what’s under threat is not just Corona but the Supreme Court itself. There are those who insist that Corona is not the whole Court. I don’t agree. What’s being challenged is not just Corona but the “Corona Court.”

Since, short of a coup, you can’t remove other problematic justices, you remove the head. It’s not a question of how many justices PNoy appoints; the more important step is to secure ourt leadership that does not behave as if it were part of the opposition.

Opponents of Corona’s impeachment say that PNoy is undermining the independence of the Court. In fact, the goal is to restore the independence of the Court. Because it does not have the resources to implement its decisions, the Supreme Court has to have the kind of authority that gets its decisions obeyed as a matter of course. This requires that it be above the partisan fray.

The Corona Court has behaved as though it is still being retained by GMA and the opposition. The Aquino administration does not require a subservient Supreme Court. All it needs is a Court that assures its independence by interpreting the law without partisan bias.

Was it inevitable that organized lawyers — most importantly, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) — should take the side of the Corona Court? To be generous, because some of my friends agree with the IBP, one can assume that they really believe the Corona impeachment threatens the integrity of the Supreme Court. But that integrity is an assumed ideal.

The reality, which any lawyer who knows his “areglaw” should know, is that the current court is not exactly stocked with giants of integrity, or even simple competence. One doesn’t have to believe widespread rumors of bought decisions; one simply has to look at public decisions which violate the court’s own procedures.

I could be cynical and say that lawyers prefer the current court because it’s easiest to deal with the familiar, to practice law where decisions are the result of money or political pressure. But if I were a lawyer, God forbid, I might be interested in having some degree of regularity established through an arbiter a Supreme Court to interpret the law fairly and competently.

Corona defenders might then say this court is not significantly different from past courts, so why punish it? Because, one way or another, the Aquino administration will move on judicial reform. The Corona impeachment is a necessary first step.

Corona, like GMA, is a victim of circumstances. Any other president would have left well enough alone, relaxed behind ‘business as usual’ vis-à-vis a recalcitrant Supreme Court. But after giving the Corona Court a year, PNoy understands that, without removing Corona, the Court would remain a court of last resort for reactionaries. Any person or organization resisting reform but facing defeat in other arenas could always look forward to being defended by the Corona Court. Indeed, perhaps Roman Catholic defenders of Corona are loath to lose a final weapon against the Reproductive Health bill.

Is the Senate going to convict Corona? One should never predict a Senate with so many ‘characters’, even if one is thankfully leaving us soon for international pastures. But the Senate is also full of people with many economic interests and vulnerabilities. Neither would I place any bets on Corona riding out exposé of expensive Makati penthouses, corruption charges against his wife, even rumors of sexual harassment cases. Resignation or conviction, either way, Corona will go.