WHAT WENT BEFORE: Corona and Malacañang

The impending retirement of Chief Justice Reynato Puno on May 17, 2010, became the proximate cause of the ongoing rift between President Benigno Aquino III and Chief Justice Renato Corona.

On May 12, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, appointed Corona, one of the senior associate justices, to succeed Puno. The appointment was immediately assailed by Mr. Aquino, the then leading presidential candidate, as a violation of the constitutional ban on “midnight appointments.”

At his inauguration the following month, Mr. Aquino broke tradition by choosing another magistrate, Conchita Carpio Morales, to administer his oath of office because he said he disagreed with the court ruling that exempted the high court from the ban on midnight appointments.

Judicial revolt

In August 2010, Mr. Aquino revoked all of Arroyo’s midnight appointments—except that of Corona’s.

Talks between Malacañang and the Supreme Court about their judiciary’s budget started in September last year, with some judges threatening to go on “mass leave” to protest Malacañang’s decision to slash by half the budget for court operations.

Mr. Aquino belied reports that the judiciary did not get an increase in its budget and asked the judges to stop their plan to go on mass leave. He also said that he was seeking a meeting with Corona to iron out differences in the interpretation of the laws on the government’s salary structure.

Seeking to break the “impasse” between Malacañang and the high court, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate called for the convening of the Judicial Executive Legislative Advisory and Consultative Council to quickly address the threat of a “judicial revolt.”

In December 2010, President Aquino slammed the high court ruling declaring the Philippine Truth Commission “unconstitutional.”

“I ask those who are pretending to be blind and passing themselves off as deaf, please don’t stand in the way of my task,” Mr. Aquino said.

In an interview marking his first year in office last May, Corona told the Inquirer that he has since set aside that official snub at the inauguration, Mr. Aquino’s attacks on the court and the general aloofness of the Palace towards the high tribunal. He said he supported President Aquino 100 percent.

However, he broke that reticence at a convention of judges last Wednesday, where he blasted Malacañang and its congressional allies for their “disrespect and lack of civility” with respect to the high court.

In his speech, Corona denounced the Palace plan (since aborted) to impound P4.97 billion of the judiciary’s budget and “the repeated threats of impeachment based on a distorted and power-tripping interpretation of ‘breach of public trust.’”

Source: Inquirer Archives