Hollow men

What makes the embattled  23rd Supreme Court chief  tick? Renato Corona testifies before the impeachment court  Tuesday—finally. Will  we  glimpse the tragedy of  hollow men?

For seven  weeks, Corona used text, press release  and speeches to parry charges. Now, the Chief  is gung ho, the defense crows. Simulation drills or  “scenario building” closed chinks in their man’s armor of a thousand-and-one legal  quibbles.

In this trial, “legal technicalities (took) precedence against  all other considerations—  in the name of law,” notes Melba Padilla Maggay from Institute for Studies in Church and Culture. The system is  “stacked up against . . .   prying  (for) the truth.”

Corona holds up the “memory of the dictatorship… as a specter, ” Maggay  adds. “Ferdinand Marcos Jr., scion of the strong man, and Miriam Defensor Santiago, erstwhile staunch ally of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, make solemn noises about their fears of the ‘unbridled powers’ of the ombudsman.”  Judges can be hollow men too.

The “Capo” will  shred  charges of  P677 million in unexplained  wealth, the defense predicts. He won’t even work up a sweat to explain a P36.7 million  “discrepancy” between  his pay envelope  and Statement of  Assets  and Liabilities.

The Iglesia ni Cristo covertly badgered senator judges to spring Corona, the Inquirer  reported.  Rep. Neil  Tupas derailed, on March 20 last year, an INC campaign  to jettison  impeachment raps  against  the Ombudsman. But Merceditas Gutierrez  bailed out.

Court  employees pray  for  Corona  and family. So does Franciscan Sister Flora Maria, who entered the convent  65 years back. The nun learned that Manila City paid  P34 million for  their ancestral Basa-Guidote Estate. Corona’s daughter bagged  estate shares for P28,000. Who pocketed  my  inheritance? the 90-year-old  Sister Flery  wonders.

Citizens seek  direct  replies to the Anti-Money Laundering Council report and Ombudsman  Conchita Carpio Morales’ testimony.  That would  help  get a  “feel”  if  Corona  measures up to  the office.

“Do not cry, Pepito,” the 5th Supreme Court chief justice  comforted  his son, before facing  a Japanese firing squad  in Lanao del  Sur on    May 2, 1942. Jose  Abad Santos refused to collaborate. “It is an honor to die for one’s country,” he said. “Not everybody has that chance.”

All have the chance  to live for one’s country though. Remember Anita  Carpon, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s manicurist? Before leaving  Malacañang, GMA  signed  hundreds  of midnight appointments, including Carpon’s for the  Pag-Ibig Fund.   “No,” said Carpon  to the two-year sinecure with  P120,000  monthly paycheck.

Vatican  Ambassador Manuel Moran also declined  outgoing President’s Elipidio Quirino’s offer of  a Supreme Court seat again.  Delicadeza dictated that  president-elect  Ramon Magsaysay  appoint.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and / I took the one less traveled by,  /And that has made all the difference,” poet  Robert  Frost wrote in 1920. Corona  signed on as  chief justice  after Benigno  Aquino III became president-elect. Hollow men prefer  that  oft-traveled  road.

“When the president-elect is known, authority of the incumbent is only to ensure orderly transfer of power,”  Ateneo’s   Joaquin Bernas   wrote. If Arroyo insists  on naming a chief justice, she courts the possibility that Congress would impeach him. That has come to pass.

Corona  appears before the court as  “defacto” chief justice, in Sen.  Rene Saguisag’s words.  Yesterday’s choice  crippled  today’s  moral  authority.  No   “scenario building” will “close  that  abyss in values.” “O, call back yesterday, bid time return”, Richard II screamed— to no avail.

Kung ano ang binhi, siya ang  bunga, old folk say.  “What the seed is, so is the fruit.”  However, the impeachment court rules, hollow men  will  gag on tomorrow’s fruit. Unfortunately, the “what if”  question is asked  late.

What if Ferdinand Marcos didn’t deteriorate into a kleptocrat? Suppose he ignored Imelda. Imagine he  used martial  power with a  Singapore’s  Lee Kwan Yew’s  austere integrity.  We’d  be  among  today’s economic tigers. A grateful  people would have interred  Marcos  in  Libingan ng  Bayani. He  molders  in  Batac cold storage instead.

What  if Benigo Aquino  Jr. buckled?  Suppose  Ninoy settled for a cushy slot in the dictatorship. He’d have left cronies in  his  dust, but  would be dwarfed. Corazon Aquino would not have led People Power—which   sparked  Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution,” Lebanon’s “Cedar Uprising” to Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolt.” Benigno III  would  be a  balding  bachelor, not the Republic’s 15th president.

What if Joseph Estrada honored his “Now Power Is with the People” pledges? People Power II would not  have erupted. Erap would not have entered history books as first convicted president.

What  if  former president Arroyo kept her Rizal Day pledge not to seek reelection? She  would  not have dialed  to say: “Hello, Garci.” There would have been no  Ampatuan town massacre or midnight appointments,  from  chief  justice  to Malacañang gardener.

Instead, GMA faces trial for election sabotage and plunder . “Not a stone will be left upon stone because  you did  not know the time of  visitation,” the Galilean master said. That is the tragedy of hollow men.

Thomas More refused to play patsy to Henry VIII’s divorce. Like Jose Abad Santos, More  was executed. A student  betrayed him to govern the backward Celtic fiefdom of Wales. Hollow men cringe at  More’s question: “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?”