Dead meat

There was a time when a few dollars used to trickle into the family budget, courtesy of my wife’s relatives in the United States. Retirement and the eventual longing for home has since caused that rivulet of welcome assistance to dry up.

Now if my wife came to lay hands on a few goodwill dollars, I see no reason why someone like Renato Corona could not. Certainly, a top-notch lawyer who eventually went on to become the chief justice of the country is no stranger to dollars.

Having dollars in a bank, or banks, should not be surprising in a country that exports 10 million of its people overseas to earn, well, mostly dollars. Even snatchers and prostitutes do stumble on a few dollars from time to time, though I doubt if the money ever gets to the bank.

What I am trying to say is that it is not Corona having dollars that should raise our eyebrows but how come he has so much. According to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, the chief justice has maybe up to $12 million stashed away in several banks.

Actually, it is not the priority of Corona to explain the $12 million but why, if he has them, he failed to declare them in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth since that is the subject of the impeachment charge he is facing.

But since the cat is out of the bag, courtesy of the concerted effort of this government (House of Representatives, Department of Justice, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Commission on Audit and Anti-Money Laundering Council) to get rid of Corona, he has no option but to explain all.

Explaining the amount of dollars is for the benefit of an incredulous public as well as to preempt a new impeachment case the Ombudsman promised in December unless the Senate decides to avoid that prospect and convict Corona now.

His explanation may as well make up the bulk of his answer to a graft case Morales is preparing, just in case the Senate votes to acquit and December takes such a long time in coming. There is, after all, a million ways to skin a cat.

If I were Corona, however, I would resign now for the sake of the country, whose sacred institutions are being sacrificed in favor of the vengeful desire of President Aquino to get all his political enemies, especially those he identifies with former president Gloria Arroyo.

If Corona resigns now, he will at least save the Senate from voting and thus becoming an unwitting party to a process that began as a farce at the House of Representatives. He can also save the Senate from getting distracted by a new impeachment in December.

And if the Ombudsman pursues its graft case against him, at least he will be a civilian by then and no longer the chief justice, thereby avoiding the constitutional crisis of having two agencies trying him when the Constitution is very clear in giving that power to the Senate.

But then again, this government is not exactly known for respecting institution. And while any campaign against corruption always sounds pleasing to the ear, it is in implementing that campaign that its true measure is tested.

I have always believed that the means can never justify the end, that any campaign against corruption, no matter how well-intentioned, should not be made at the expense of sacred institutions that keep this country together. Otherwise, we might as well legalize salvagings.

Corona should resign after taking the stand, as his lawyers promised. Even if he manages to answer all allegations against him, the damage to his reputation has been done and he is dead meat, so to speak. And if he is guilty, then he shall have gotten what he deserves.

One last thing, though. I am uncomfortable with the testimony of Morales that Corona has 82 dollar accounts. Even Bill Gates probably does not keep his money in that many accounts. But then, just like the 45 properties he was accused of owning, the shotgun approach always works.