Wenceslao: How Corona operates

Saturday, February 11, 2012

I LIKE the post I saw in Facebook yesterday that showed a photo of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and his wife standing in the terrace of the Supreme Court being contrasted with that of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife standing in the balcony of Malacañang. It was captioned, “We all know what happened to the last guy who did the ‘balcony thing.’”

Corona has resisted calls for him to quit despite the pummeling he is getting in the Senate acting as an impeachment court. He seems determined to drag the country into a constitutional crisis by using the Supreme Court as a shield against further scrutiny of his integrity as head of the country’s highest judicial body.

“Kahit patayin ninyo ako, lalabanan ko kayo hanggang sa huling hininga,” Corona said Thursday in front of his fanatics. I am old enough in the struggle for societal change to know that fighting words don’t mean anything in the end. Indeed, look at what happened to the last guy who did the balcony thing.

***

Fans of the blog of journalist Raissa Robles, “Inside Philippine Politics and Beyond,” are amused at his latest entry, “I Become Part of the Corona Story” (Feb. 9, 2012). It turned out some pro-Corona netizens are busy maliciously referring to her as the “Little Lady” who leaked the Corona bank accounts.

To recall, Misamis Oriental Rep. Rey Umali claimed that a “small lady” whom he did not recognize handed to him documents containing information on the chief justice’s accounts in Philippine Savings Bank and Bank of the Philippine Islands. The impeachment court subsequently issued a subpoena for the two banks to produce information on the said accounts.

Pro-Corona netizens demonizing Robles, Manila correspondent of South China Morning Post (HK) and Radio Netherlands, had the blogger worried. “People have warned me to be extra careful,” Robles said in her blog.”

She continued: “I am not taking such advice lightly because of certain affidavits I have which make chilling claims about how CJ Corona operates. I’m only starting to verify these, but meanwhile I have sent copies to a lawyer for safekeeping.”
***
Judging from the reaction of Chief Justice Renato Corona to efforts by the impeachment court to pry open his bank accounts, both in local and foreign currency, the money involved must really be big. Corona and the defense lawyers sounded frantic when they asked for relief from the Supreme Court. They didn’t act this way when only Corona’s properties were looked into.

If he is not hiding anything and if he can really justify the presence of millions of pesos in his bank accounts, then Corona would have voluntarily opened himself up to scrutiny by the impeachment court. In doing so, the country would be spared from a constitutional crisis and the resolution of the Corona case would be swift.

But he seems determined to hold on to his post. Which reminds me of Libya’s late strongman Muammar Ghadafi, who staked everything for the defense of his crumbling rule. In the end, he was captured while hiding like a rat, his final humiliation ended only because he was executed.

(khanwens@yahoo.com)