Let those without sin boo

When Renato Corona showed up at the so-called million people march and rally at the Luneta last Monday, purposely scheduled to be held on National Heroes Day in protest against the infamous pork barrel, the former chief justice who was removed from office on corruption charges was heckled and booed until he was forced to leave.

I believe Corona should not have gone to the rally. Aware as he surely must have been of the nature of the gathering, I think the former chief justice truly went out on a limb by going there. Nevertheless, having decided to go, at great risk to his human dignity or whatever is still left of it, not to mention a potentially real danger to his security, no one absolutely had the right to disturb his presence there.

Corona may have been removed from office, but he remains a free man and has the right of any free man to go wherever he wishes to go. The Luneta is a public place. It is not the exclusive enclave of the "morally right." I was therefore aghast when I saw the "morally right" heckle and boo Corona until he and his family were forced to retreat.

Whether they retreated in shame or in fear is of no moment. That they were forced to leave is an issue that should not be divorced from the narrative about the gathering, a narrative that, sad to say, is one-sided and wanting. All that was said of Corona was that he was booed and driven away. Nothing was ever said about the deprivation of his rights and the nastiness with which it was done by the supposed "morally right."

Had Jesus been in the crowds, or at least in the hearts of those who were zealously beating their chests in self-righteous indignation, then the Son of God would have been appalled by such open and wanton display of cruelty. Jesus would have been reminded of his own treatment by the Jews, who were his own people. That single act of unkindness toward Corona totally spoiled the beauty of the gathering.

And this has got me to thinking about those who booed Corona, and whether they were truly better persons than he was, or whether the mere act of joining in a righteous rally by itself makes them righteous as well? Corona may have been removed from office for an offense that not only degraded his stature and his own person but diminished our nation as a whole as well. But I do not think that his descent to the deepest depths qualifies our own height over him.

How many of those who booed Corona are truly angels in their own right? How many of them can stand up before their own God and believe he or she has a better chance of going to Heaven than Corona on Judgment Day? I am not saying Corona is an angel. We all know he isn't. But by doing what they did to Corona last National Heroes Day, those who drove him away only exposed themselves as no better, and possibly even worse than he is.

Come to think of it, what a travesty the booing made of what was being observed as a national holiday on that day. There was nothing heroic or "magiting" in what some people did to a helpless man whose only defense was probably some unspoken conviction to repair the irreparable damage that he has done, to himself and to his country.

Among the other people who showed up at the rally was Cardinal Tagle, whose presence was highly touted by participants as the unequivocal support of the Church and a manifestation of the Christian righteousness of their undertaking. What they apparently forgot in their eagerness to proclaim such Christian righteousness was how unChristian they had been to Corona.

The bedrock of Christianity is forgiveness. What a shame that Jesus had to die for the travesty that was committed last Monday. And to think that Corona did not show up in order to be forgiven. He was there to confront his own demons, the demons if his past, perhaps trying to get a feel of what it was like to be in the midst again of people he thought were "morally right."

But the people he thought "morally right" proved to be a big disappointment. They could not rise above their own pettiness. They were no better than the flies on the back of a carabao. What a far better and more inspirational story it would have been had the people welcomed the prodigal son with wide open arms. What a story it would have been to tell and retell down the generations.

Booing a sinner? That is so ordinary. That is so predictable. It makes nothing special of our humanity. And yet there they were, protesting. Those who are incapable of forgiving have no right to demand anything. Forgiveness is at the core of Christianity. It is at the core of the human person. It is the core of all that is right. It is in this sense that, at its very core, I think the rally last Monday was empty.