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If you have been following the capers of politicians and public personalities over time, as I have, you can’t help feeling nauseated at the way they rationalize their sins and condemn the same sins when committed by others.
Take impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona’s complaint that his impeachment was pulled off in “blitzkrieg fashion.”
Blitzkrieg, for those not familiar with the language of Deutschland, means “lightning war,” referring to Nazi Germany’s strategy of unleashing a massive concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power at high speed to break through enemy lines, keeping the enemy off-balance and making it difficult to effectively respond.
Corona complains that a massive concentration of congressional clout was similarly unleashed at lightning speed to impeach him.
Look who’s talking.
Here is a Supreme Court that takes years to render a verdict on a backlog of cases, in a disgusting display of “justice delayed, justice denied.”
Yet, wasn’t it in “blitzkrieg fashion” that Corona and his fellow Arroyo-appointees passed a TRO against the Department of Justice?
And wasn’t this in order to facilitate the departure for foreign shores of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and husband -- quite likely, beyond the reach of Philippine law?
The record-breaking speed at which the TRO was passed, suspicious enough as it was, becomes even more questionable when you consider that the Arroyos had booked their flight with more than one airline in apparent anticipation of the TRO’s “fast-track” passage.
You have to be incredibly naïve not to conclude that Arroyo’s fifth columnists in the high court had told them beforehand to pack their bags, because the TRO was “in the bag.”
Corona and his apologists insist that the “Aquino-controlled Congress” should have devoted more time to reading through the impeachment documents in compliance with the Constitution.
Look who’s talking.
When the Corona court issued the TRO and it was determined that there was incomplete compliance with its conditions, Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, in her dissenting opinion, pointed out that, “the Court should explicitly state that the TRO was thereby suspended in the meantime pending compliance with Condition Number 2.”
Yet the Corona court decided to force through “in blitzkrieg fashion” the implementation of the TRO, with spokesman Midas Marquez conveniently failing to provide information on the issue of non-compliance.
Corona describe his impeachment as “a bold, albeit ill-advised, attempt by the executive branch ... to mold an obedient Supreme Court.”
Look who’s talking.
Corona overlooks the fact that his own appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was similarly “a bold, albeit ill-advised, attempt by the [outgoing head] of the executive branch... to mold an obedient Supreme Court.”
Indeed, compared to the actions of Noynoy Aquino, there are clearer indications that Corona’s former boss in Malacañang -- a boss in his various capacities -- intended to “mold an obedient Supreme Court” by flagrantly violating the Constitutional ban on the appointment of a new chief justice at the time that she did.
And Corona’s fellow Arroyo appointees confirmed that they had been “molded” into an “obedient Supreme Court” when they defied high court jurisprudence and creatively declared his assumption of the post of Chief Justice “within the bounds of law.”
Corona claims that he had nothing to do with his being voted into that position because the other justices did the voting. He must think the whole country is naïve. By his own admission, he wanted the position. Delicadeza and jurisprudence dictated that he should have declined the nomination. To claim that he had no hand in the action of the associate justices is mental dishonesty.
Corona, quoted in media, accuses President Noynoy Aquino of “leading the Liberal Party in coalescing with other House allies to oust him as the head of the Supreme Court in an ‘intemperate demonstration of political might.’”
Look who’s talking.
The Arroyo-controlled, pork-barrel-fed, brown-envelope-motivated members of the House of Representatives blocked, time after time, the attempts of the opposition to impeach Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in an “intemperate demonstration of political might.”
In his many appearances in TV talk shows, Arroyo lieutenant, Rep. Prospero Pichay, didn’t mind boasting that it was “a matter of numbers.” The Arroyo gang had the numbers and there was no way an impeachment would prosper.
Needless to say, because of Pichay’s arrogance, when he ran for senator, he ended up in the vegetable patch. Nangamote.
Corona describes his impeachment as “a partisan orgy, devoid of any mature deliberation and of lawful purpose whatsoever.”
Look who’s talking.
A close look at the number of pro-Arroyo decisions rendered by the Corona court can only be similarly described as “a partisan orgy, devoid of any mature deliberation and of lawful purpose whatsoever.”
And that includes the TRO issued by the Corona court blocking the impeachment of the then ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.
He then calls on the Senate “to defend the judiciary and the country from the abyss of unchecked executive power.”
Look who’s talking.
Did Corona similarly call on the Senate to defend the country “from the abyss of unchecked executive power” wielded by his boss, Arroyo?
Corona warns that his impeachment is “a rushed, partisan and insidious attempt to unseat a sitting Chief Justice,” and may be considered an “unveiled threat against the other justices of the Supreme Court.”
Corona concludes: “(U)nless this august Senate heeds his pleas for justice and reason and lends its protective intercession against a determined executive, Chief Justice Corona could well be the last defender of judicial independence. After him, there may be nothing left to protect.”
Look who’s talking. This statement should read:
“Chief Justice Corona could well be the last defender of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. After him, there may be no one to protect his former boss.”
Hallelujah! It looks like a Happy New Year.
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