Don't make Corona resign anymore

Congressmen-prosecutors needed to substantiate three raps, from an initial eight, against impeached Chief Justice Corona. Two were fairly easy. First, that on mere say-so of an airline lawyer, he undid a years-old Supreme Court ruling to rehire 1,400 flight attendants. Second, that via judicial ruse, he let his patron ex-President Gloria Arroyo nearly flee abroad from heinous criminal indictment.

The third — that Corona fudged and hid his yearly Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth — was toughest to crack.

Distractions hobbled the hearings. There were a senator-judge’s routine screeching, a defense lawyer’s deft exploitation of technicalities, other defenders’ selective demand for inhibition and wholesale claim of Malacañang’s bribery of judges, a bloated list of real estates, a private counsel’s contemptuous court behavior, an anonymous “small lady’s” spreading around of bank records, and an academic’s passing around of phony evidence. Distortions further served to suppress evidence: the SC ban on employees from testifying, and from scrutinizing Corona’s dollar accounts.

Only accident helped. Ironically aided by defense inadvertence, prosecutors were more than able to prove that third charge.

Corona had called in Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales as hostile witness. Unexpectedly the latter presented evidence of his hidden wealth, totaling about P677 million. Bulk of it is $12 million (P510 million) in fresh deposits, out of 752 transactions in 82 accounts in his name in several branches of five banks. The rest consist of about P100 million in peso deposits, and plush condos and houses in Metro Manila. Coupled with the prosecution’s earlier demonstration of Corona’s alleged injuring of his wife’s Basa-Guidote close kin, the story looks plausible.

The Senate impeachment court earlier had banned prosecutors from showing any ill-gotten wealth, for it was not in the charge sheet. But Carpio-Morales was the defense’s witness, albeit “hostile.” And she gave evidence that, according to court rules that it loved to invoke, the defense must now accept, even if only to mark. Such proof is eminent preponderance that Corona indeed deflated, falsified, and concealed his net worth. He had declared only P22.9 million in net worth in 2010.

And so the defense has no choice but to debunk the evidence it unintentionally extracted from the Ombudsman. Logically only Corona can do that, on the witness stand. His counsels have asked the Senate for one week to prepare him to testify. Presumably he will rehearse what to refute, how to appear, and whom to implicate. He has endured brickbats thrown his way inside and out of court. In the face of seeming defeat, a person of sappier stuff would be tempted to bring everyone down with him.

The impeachment and the trial have dragged for six months. In the wake of Carpio-Morales’s damning testimony, Corona’s critics are yelling louder for him to resign. Hopefully, he does not. As the country’s highest lawyer, he must rise, or fall perhaps, on his defense strategy. Having toughed it out to this point, he should await the court verdict.

Conviction by two-thirds of the Senate, on any of the three charges, would dismiss Corona from the fifth highest position in the land. It also would perpetually bar him from any public office.

Acquittal not only will keep him as Chief Justice, till age 70 in Oct. 2018. It also would shield him from criminal raps by the Ombudsman, which is matching the spikes in his bank deposits with his major SC votes. As a bonus for Corona, acquittal could torment Noynoy Aquino till the end of the President’s term in June 2016, for supposedly masterminding the impeachment.

Nothing, of course, can stop Corona from stepping down after putting up a spirited defense. He could then await better climes, either to return to appointive, or even run for elective, office. Recall the poll tries of Garcillano and Bolante, or the victories of Palparan and Ecleo. Given instant name-recall imbued by the televised trial, his war chest and backers, and the nature of Filipino voters, Corona could acquire the title of Mayor, Governor, Congressman, Senator, why, even Pres....

Nothing can stop the Senate either from rendering a verdict despite a belated resignation. Its members repeatedly talk of history in the making in the impeachment trial. It would be averse to an increasingly suspicious public’s view of surprises as political settlements or some such.

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Since people can’t seem to get enough of impeachment hearings, the inimitable Willie Nep is put “On Trial ... and Error.” The one-night-only show on May 26, Saturday, 8:30 p.m., at the Music Museum, Greenhills Commercial Center, San Juan, features a certain Cuevas plus some judges. Tickets available at TicketWorld, (02) 8919999, Music Museum (02) 7216726, 7210635, or at the gate. Choicest seats between Raymart and Tulfo, assures Willie Nep. All rise!

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Those interested in the outcome of some of the worst government scams in the past decade might wish to get a copy of Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government. The compilation of my selected columns includes the NBN-ZTE, Diwalwal-ZTE, and NAIA-3 construction anomalies; Malacañang’s secret exploration giveaway with China, and the Gen. Carlos Garcia plunder, among others. Available at National Bookstore and Powerbooks.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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E-mail: [email protected]