Goodbye, Corona, no thanks to you!

Shortly before six o’clock p.m. last Tuesday (May 29, 2012), the Philippine’s finest moment in history, since the People’s Revolt in 1986, went curtains down. Impeached chief justice Renato C. Corona got a verdict of GUILTY for culpable violation of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The Senate Impeachment Court voted 20 for his ouster or removal with only 3 insisting that he keep his top seat in the Supreme Court.

I expected that verdict. Many Filipinos, here and abroad, expected that.

Corona’s debasing 3-hour face-to-face-with-the-impeachment-court testimony was all-revealing and damaging to Corona himself. It bolstered, and expanded the charges against him, even as it surprised even the senator-judges. While others (only few) have been saying that it was the impeachment respondent’s fault to have said so many unexpected things in his testimony (which his defense panel readily adopted as the only direct examination matter that it was presenting), because it opened a pandora’s box of sort, many have said that it was again God’s will and way. God has wanted the whole Filipino nation to wake up to the reality that the Philippines is capable of restoring the strength, justness and fairness of its justice system and that real demoracy can really made to work in its government.

The Filipino nation should now be thanking the Senate and the senators for their two-thirds guilty judgment.

Senator Lapid was too frank and humble to speak out his point. He made so clear that being only a high school boy without the benefit of a higher education or training in law, he was voting out of his own conscience. He voted to convict Corona.

The three who voted to acquit the chief magistrate were Senator-judges Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor Santiago and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.. It was the lady’s lecture-type explanation of her vote that I disliked most. Her piece was the poorest presentation. All three acquittal explanations were irrelevant to the charges, because, by and large, they dwelt more on interpreting laws, which no senator is authorized to engage in, apart from clearly castigating those who pushed for the impeachment.

Copies of the judgment were immediately ordered reproduced to be served the Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, among others. Following that order by the lawyer’s lawyer, that presiding senate president-judge Juan Ponce Enrile has become for his brilliance, eloquence and adeptness at age 88, the nation immediately started talking about the possible replacement to seat as chief justice and whether or not Corona would still be given time enough for him to pick up his personal belongings from the halls of the Supreme Court building.

Backwards, the employment of fallacies – plainly, arguments that are not admissible and not acceptable because of their very nature: illogical, meaning, not responsive, not relevant, out of order, insane or meant to create insanity on anybody to whom any such fallacious arguments is addressed – had been substantially used twice during the impeachment of Corona, first, by the defense panel led by retired Supreme Court associate justice Serafin Cuevas, and second, by Renato himself. Renato’s turn to employ this dirty tactic came during his “opening statement” which wound up with a series of cinematic, if not simply dramatic or “scripted” or “choreographed”, events in which he was successfully portrayed as the star of his own direction. (Last time, QN essayed on “Cuevas’ suspicion means fallacies bared” which the Leyte Samar Daily Express, this regional newspaper, published on May 10, 2012.)

Ah, yes, the CORONA GUILTY verdict cannot anymore be opened up or touched in the Senate. The impeachment trial was forthwith terminated about 2 minutes to 6 p.m. of that day. The Senate adjourned sine die. The Supreme Court was left with the task of making Corona’s exit and his replacment immediately possible. Corona’s camp was said to abide by the verdict and not to bring anymore that verdict to the highest court. Cuevas? He is not leaving his dear friend.

Henceforth, there will be no more pro- or anti-Corona or pro- or anti-impeachment issues, only possible criminal, administrative, civil, or special proceeds cases against the ousted chief violator of the Philippine Constitution.

What’s clear to all? Corona was guilty of betrayal of public trust. That will remain forever unclosed but as a guide to government officials, judges, lawyers, law students, the media, and all who are interested in how democracy works in this country.

***

NEW DAR PROVINCIAL CHIEFS! – The publics in Eastern Visayas region (Region VIII) may well be advised and informed, at least via this column, that new faces man three provincial offices of the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Waray region. All designated as OIC-provincial agrarian reform officers II (OIC-PARO II), they are: Pie M. Rojas who is assigned to head and lead the DAR provincial office in Samar (DARPO-Samar), Leovegildo Monge – DARPO-Leyte, and Ismael Aya-ay – DARPO-Biliran. Pie (also known as “Pax”) was formerly a municipal agrarian reform officer (MARO), a plantilla item which she held until her designation as OIC-chief agrarian reform program officer for operation (CARPO) in Samar and assignment to the DAR regional operations division at Sto. Niño extension, Tacloban where she got the next higher plantilla item of CARPO. Monge (he is more popular by his surname than even his pet name) was first a MARO until he was named OIC-PARO I (PARO I, also known as provincial agrarian reform support services officer, is next in top command of a DARPO. Dodong, pet name of Ismael, was similarly situated as Monge. Nothern Samar and Southern Leyte also have new OIC-PARO IIs. To all the provincial chiefs, my congratulations! Good luck and God bless you as you tread your newest, challenging paths of leadership and management.

“But how then does human knowledge arise from practice and in turn serve practice? This will become clear if we look at the process of development of knowledge.

“In the process of practice, man at first sees only the phenomenal side, the separate aspects, the external relations of things. For instance, some people from outside come to Yenan on a tour of observation. In the first day or two, they see its topography, streets and houses; they meet many people, attend banquets, evening parties and mass meetings, hear talk of various kinds and read various documents, all these being the phenomena, the separate aspects and the external relations of things. This is called the perceptual stage of cognition, namely, the stage of sense perceptions and impressions. That is, these particular things in Yenan act on the sense organs of the members of the observation group, evoke sense perceptions and give rise in their brains to many impressions together with a rough sketch of the external relations among these impressions: this is the first stage of cognition. At this stage, man cannot as yet form concepts, which are deeper, or draw logical conclusions.” – Mao Tse Tung

By: Chito Dela Torre

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