What can you make of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s testimony and walkout?
One, it was no surprise that the Chief Justice took the stand and made a lengthy personal defense before the Senate impeachment court. Those who listened to his two to three hour harangue noticed that he didn’t say anything that hadn’t been said before in his media offensive.
Two, the Basa Guidote account, as Corona tells it, sheds some sympathetic light, however brief, on their side as he tells the story of a failing business that he and his family saved only to be painted as villains by the family whom he described as a bunch of spoiled, quarreling brats.
In between we saw the Chief Justice trying to rein in some emotions. He looked almost teary eyed as he bewailed the seeming conspiracy to bring about his downfall.
The rest happened in a blur. Corona challenged his accusers to a test of transparency by authorizing a waiver to disclose his dollar accounts in exchange for the congressmens’ joint disclosure of whatever dollar accounts they may also have.
At the same time, Corona asserted his authority by standing up and walking out, to the visible and utter shock of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who threatened to throw the book at him.
His exit was a medical emergency, if we are to believe Corona’s lawyer.
Pardon the skepticism, but the Chief Justice would have to show the test results of his hypoglycemic flareup. That’s how weak his credibility is at this point.
In Corona’s first appearance in the Senate-impeachment court, Corona swerved from factual issues to value judgments in an attempt to turn the tables on Malacañang, the House prosecution team and even the Basa family on his wife’s side.
In making his case to the Filipino, Corona dropped the robe of legal majesty that he usually drapes himself with and chose to play it up to the public, knowing fully well the political nature of the impeachment trial.
For all his bravado and “woe is me” portrayal, Corona threw the monkey-wrench on his defense not once but twice.
First, his waiver of bank secrecy is nothing but a scrap of paper due to a self-serving condition to bait all 188 members of Congress who signed his impeachment, including Sen. Franklin Drilon.
Then his surprise departure from the hall without the permission of the senators was unbecoming if not outrightly disrespectful.
He would have scored more sympathy points had he called 911 from the witness stand.
It was a sorry sight indeed – a helpless Corona on a wheelchair while Enrile ordered the Chief Justice’s lawyer to present him today or risk an early ruling.
Corona has made his case.
Now it’s time for him to answer his accusers.