Some of my political science students in University of San Carlos came to me worried about the implications of the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Renato Corona. They were also concerned about the independence of the judiciary that may be affected by the controversy.
I told them not to worry. The impeachment process is enshrined in the Constitution based on the principle that “a public office is a public trust” and that all government officials must be accountable to the people.
Will Corona’s impeachment undermine the judiciary? With due respect, I submit that it won’t. CJ Corona is not the judiciary . The impeachment is not against the judiciary as an institution but against the chief justice. One should also look at the track record of the administration of President Noynoy Aquino. His mother was an icon of democracy. P-Noy is an anti-corruption advocate. I don’t think he’s there to destroy institutions of democracy.
We have heard numerous complaints from lawyers about corruption in the highest court of the land but only a few lawyers have the balls to specify these acts of crooked justices for fear their future cases in the Supreme Court would be direly affected. That is why only on rare occasions do we hear lawyers protesting corruption in the Supreme Court.
Besides, Corona will have his day in court. Corona will be afforded due process of law, and if he can prove his innocence, then he will be absolved and government operation will go on smoothly.
Impeachment is the logical consequence of a system of check and balance. If it was evil, then the framers of our Constitution would not have provided for it in our fundamental law. What they wanted was a remedy for people to hold powerful government officials like the chief justice answerable to the people.
It’s easy for anyone to criticize the President and members of Congress or accuse them of wrongdoings. For some, it is not right to embarrass a justice of the Supreme Court this way because it would undermine the judiciary. But there is something more superior than any law and that is common sense. The impeachment of Corona makes sense especially for many ordinary citizens.
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Some quarters don’t seem not to understand why Major General Jovito Palparan was issued a warrant for his arrest. They blame the Aquino government instead for a case of murder being filed against Palparan. This is being mentally dishonest to blame the Aquino government for naming Palparan a butcher, a term coined by human rights activists.
Why is the government running after Palparan when he was just doing his job as a military man protecting Filipinos, ask his supporters? It is a valid question but what Palparan did was to take the law into his own hands, which is clearly in violation of our laws. Palparan was supposed to protect the Filipino people; he he was not authorized to kill citizens under the guise of a mandate to protect them.
Precisely he belonged to an elite group that was provided with arms to do their job and not to kill the innocent. Again this is a case of making government and military officials accountable to the people for their misdeeds when they were active in service. Besides, Palparan should be happy that he is being given the opportunity to be heard and defend himself unlike like those he ordered summarily killed.