Corona: I’m ready for Aquino retaliation

MANILA, Philippines – Chief Justice Renato Corona is certain that the Aquino administration will get back at him following the Supreme Court’s decision to distribute the vast Hacienda Luisita sugar estate to farmers.

“Sigurado [I am very sure], the administration will get back at me,” the Chief Justice said in a text message sent to reporters.

But the Chief Justice, whose trial will resume on May 7, said he was ready to face the consequences of the high court’s action who he said was “social justice as ordained by the Constitution.”

The high court upheld its November, 2011 decision ordering the distribution of 4,915.75 sugarland hectare to some 6,000 farmers and pegged the just compensation on the fair market value of the land in November 1989.

Hacienda Luisita farmers who waited outside Supreme Court in Baguio for the decision on Tuesday displayed a streamer which declared, “Chief Justice Corona, you are the Champion of Agrarian Reform! We salute you for being firm in Luisita decision.”

But the Chief Justice said “I am no champion. We just did what is right and fair.”

Corona had been claiming that the tribunal’s Nov. 22, 2011 ruling was the main reason why Aquino wanted to unseat him.

The high court rejected HLI’s appeal and upheld its landmark ruling on Tuesday, ending the decades-long legal battle over the contested farmland.

Corona, along with seven other justices, ruled that the Cojuangco-owned HLI should be paid according to the hacienda’s fair market value in 1989.

In its appeal, HLI had wanted the government to compensate it using 2006 land values.