Joker Arroyo tells Aquino, Corona: Shut up and let Senate finish its job

MANILA, Philippines—As they continued to escalate the broadsides in their word war, President Benigno Aquino and Chief Justice Renato Corona got a piece of unsolicited advice from a senator: Stop the bar-room brawl and let the Senate finish its job.

“What is distressing is no longer the endless impeachment trial to remove the Chief Justice that the President is supporting, but the uninterrupted exchanges of scathing and harsh words uttered with complete abandon outside the Senate proceedings by no less than the head of the executive branch and the head of judicial branch of government,’’ Senator Joker Arroyo lamented on the telephone in an interview.

The fresh exchange was “sad’’ and the intensity, unprecedented, Arroyo said. “Unfortunately we enjoy this unhealthy development as a people.”

Arroyo said the “hatred” between the President and the Chief Justice has degenerated into a “bar-room brawl” that not only damages the country and Filipinos, but tarnishes “our reputation as a civilized people” before the world.

He said it was about time Aquino and Corona let the Senate proceed with Corona’s impeachment trial, and see it through the end, without any interruption.

“Constitutionally, the ball is with the Senate and no other. Let the Senate finish its job, uninterrupted by kibitzers, and that includes the principals themselves,” he said.

As the trial entered Day 19 last Thursday, Aquino assailed Corona anew before students of La Consolacion College in Manila, and declared that the Chief Justice could no longer be trusted for failing to disclose his bank deposits.

Later in the trial, Philippine Savings Bank officials volunteered that Corona closed three peso time deposit accounts, whose opening balances totaled P32.6 million,  on December 12, 2011, the same day members of the House of Representatives impeached him.

Corona struck back the next day, challenging the President to disclose not only his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, but also his psychological records. He called on Aquino not to interfere in, preempt and influence the impeachment court.