Rodel Rodis
When Filipinos describe the qualities they admire most in other people, integrity and loyalty are among those that are often lumped in the same level. One person can be described as honest and upstanding while another can be viewed as loyal and faithful and both considered equally admirable attributes.
Controversial Chief Justice Renato Corona, for example, has been called many things but there is one quality that no one has ever doubted he possesses, loyalty. The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition) defines loyalty as "allegiance… personal devotion and reverence to the sovereign" and further adds that “one who is loyal, in the feudal sense of fealty, is one who has full legal rights as a consequence of faithful allegiance.”
In his 1908 book, The Philosophy of Loyalty, Josiah Royce presented loyalty as a primary virtue, "the heart of all the virtues, the central duty amongst all the duties". Loyalty, Royce wrote, is “the basic moral principle from which all other principles can be derived.” It is "the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause".
Prof. Richard P. Mullin explained the three words "willing and practical and thoroughgoing" as: “Loyalty is willing in that it is freely given, not coerced. It is chosen after personal consideration, not something that one is born into. Loyalty is practical in that it is practiced. It is actively engaged upon, not passively expressed merely as a strong feeling about something. Loyalty is thoroughgoing in that it is not merely a casual interest but a wholehearted commitment to a cause.”
If expressing a deep and abiding gratitude to the “sovereign” who appointed him as Chief Justice is a problem for others, too bad. To Chief Justice Corona, it is a “wholehearted commitment.”
In her book, “Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court”, Maritess Danguilan Vitug wrote that in all his years on the Supreme Court, “Corona’s loyalty to the appointing power was indisputable. He consistently voted for President Arroyo in a number of politically consequential cases.”
“Among Justices, when he is relaxed,” Vitug wrote, “Corona can be quite open. He once told some of his colleagues that President Arroyo took care of his hospital bill when he underwent an operation to ease his bad back. He was already on the Court then.”
After Arroyo appointed him to the Supreme Court in 2002, he toldNewsbreak in an interview what rewards he reaped as Arroyo’s chief of staff when she was vice-president. “When you’re a Malacanang official, it just takes one call. If there’s an emergency case and you really need an operation, you can call the Heart Center and you’re really prioritized.” (Corona had a corona-ry bypass in 1995).
Corona has another reason to be grateful. On March 23, 2007, Arroyo appointed his wife, Maria Cristina Roco Corona, as a member of the Board of the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC) which Arroyo created by Executive Order in 2002. According to the Baguio Sun Star news report on June 6, 2011, the John Hay firm admitted incurring a P2.6 billion ($60 million) debt for a 2008 lease of 247 hectares in the John Hay Special Economic Zone in Baguio City.
Mrs. Corona was appointed to the John Hay Board over the vociferous objections of JHMC board members, management and rank-and-file employees who accused her of acts of misconduct and negligence and opposed her election as director and president.
According to Rep. Jesus Remulla, instead of acting on the complaints, President Arroyo "instructed all members of the JHMC to tender their courtesy resignations immediately. After the resignations, Mrs. Corona was retained and even promoted after President Arroyo expressed her desire for Mrs. Corona’s election as OIC Chairman of the JHMC Board."
But Corona is not the only Arroyo appointee to the Supreme Court to express his gratitude to the “feudal lord” who appointed him. Justice Mariano Del Castillo, the champion plagiarist who was appointed by Arroyo in 2009, has also expressed his deep gratitude to Arroyo.
After he went through a quintuple bypass in 2007, Del Castillo needed a second opinion. When Pres. Arroyo heard of his need, she flew in noted heart surgeon Dr. Alex Yap from San Francisco to provide it to him.
To express his gratitude, Del Castillo wrote a letter to the Philippine Star praising Arroyo: “Her single indiscriminate act of kindness in my momentary blow is something of eternal value, let alone something that highlights how admirable she is. She may be marred by shrill criticisms and accusations because of some unpopular decisions and boo-boos, but as we all are, she is only human prone to mistakes.”
Knowing of what Arroyo also did for fellow justice Corona, Del Castillo added: “I can bravely say that surely I am not the only one who had been directly benefited by the personal intervention of the President.”
When Arroyo was looking for justices to appoint to the Philippine Supreme Court, she expressed a desire for judicial candidates who possessed qualities she most admired. She found them in all her appointees who have shown their “willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion” to her.
In his 1987 essay, Damaged Culture, James Fallows wrote about how Filipinos pride themselves on their lifelong loyalty. “But when observing Filipino friendships, I thought often of the Mafia families portrayed in The Godfather: total devotion to those within the circle, total war on those outside.”
Chief Justice Corona has declared his total devotion to those within his circle and his total war on those outside of it. The beneficiary of this fierce loyalty is quite pleased.
(Send comments to Rodel50@aol.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.34.7800).
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