Testify now, Your Honor

For his own sake and as a humble act of accountability to the Filipino people, Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona should take the witness stand when his impeachment trial at the Senate resumes today.

This would substantiate Corona’s promise—made during a media blitz in the runup to the Upper House’s Holy Week and Easter break—to explain, in due time, discrepancies in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth and subject his dollar and other bank accounts to public scrutiny.

Due time begins today, Senator-judges Gregorio Honasan, Franklin Drilon and Jinggoy Estrada impliedly said in a report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Corona owes the Filipino people an explanation more than he does the senator-judges, Honasan said. “We are only extensions of the will of the people.”

The Chief Justice must man up instead of constantly delegating to his lawyers—who really do not want him to take the witness stand—the task of determining when is the due time for him to testify.

But “[t]hey have not proven anything,” said defense lawyer Tranquil Salvador, referring to the prosecution. “Why do we need to present the Chief Justice?”

This way of reasoning is twice-fallen.

First, contrary to Salvador’s assessment, the prosecution has shown that there are inconsistencies in the range of millions between Corona’s declared and actual assets. To many, these inconsistencies do not look like byproducts of mere inadvertence.

Second, blasting his lawyer’s spin, Corona’s testimony is necessary not because the prosecutors in their eyes proved nothing but because by cowering behind his lawyers the Chief Justice only lends credence to the popular perception that he has vast fortunes to cover up.

Already, Ombudsman Conchita-Carpio Morales ordered Corona to explain why he allegedly owns at least US $10 million in bank deposits. The Chief Justice’s cool response to the order as well as the persistent relative inaccessibility of SALNs recently filed by members of the court of last resort have not helped remove the cloud of mystery so inimical to transparent governance that surrounds the judiciary.

Meanwhile, enterprising journalists managed to have the Chief Justice’s colorful backstory splayed out for all too see. Today, few are unaware of his and his immediate family’s reportedly villainous role in the wrangling over the Basa-Guidote Enterprise Inc. Few are unaware of his long-time toleration of the display of inaccurate items from his curriculum vitae on the SC’s website. The nation’s lead magistrate closed a set of books only to see the public content itself by reading off the pages of another set.

The signs are unmistakably clear. On the witness stand of the proper forum that is the Senate impeachment tribunal, Corona needs to do himself and the public some generous service by humbly indulging the clamor for him to try to acquit his character and his riches.