Aquino: It’s Corona who is the dictator

Look who’s talking, who’s the dictator?

A day after he was accused of attempting to establish a dictatorship, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday said Chief Justice Renato Corona was being impeached because he had been dictating how government should be run with the Supreme Court’s changing interpretations of the law.

“Well, perhaps, that is their position. Let’s look at whose actions show whatever,” the President told reporters in Malacañang when asked about Corona’s allegations that he was dismantling the constitutional system of check and balance among the three branches of government.

“Isn’t it when we go to the court, we expect… fairness and certainty in the law. So, if that certainty and predictability of the law are lost, when the interpretation of the law is changed, who’s the one followed? Who’s the one dictating?” he said.

Mr. Aquino said it was difficult to understand the accusation that he was building a dictatorship when “we are the ones being confused by the changing decisions that affect the people.”

He also dared Corona to reveal his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) required of government officials.

“There’s one notable thing. From what I understand, he said that he files his SALN every year. Now, it was easy  (Wednesday) when he was speaking to show a copy of his SALN. But didn’t you notice he didn’t do so?” the President said in Malacañang.

Asked whether he was concerned about the widening rift between the executive and the judiciary, he said, “I don’t think it is the Supreme Court and the Executive (branch) that has an issue … It is certain personalities who are not doing their branch of the government due service that are causing these problems.”

Unprecedented attack

Mr. Aquino has mounted an unprecedented attack on the Supreme Court after marshaling his forces to put former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo under arrest to fulfill a campaign promise to prosecute her for electoral sabotage, graft and corruption and plunder.

He questioned the legality of Corona’s appointment as Chief Justice and accused him of being an obstacle to his reform program by siding with Arroyo in cases brought against her.

On Monday, Mr. Aquino’s allies in the House of Representatives impeached Corona with a stunning vote of 188 members carried out in unusual swiftness and secrecy.

On Wednesday, the Senate formally convened as an impeachment court. It will begin proceedings next month after the Christmas break.

Eight articles of impeachment have been filed against the Chief Justice to support three grounds for his ouster for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption.

On Wednesday, Corona denied the allegations against him, reminded the President and Congress that Supreme Court rulings were “collegial” decisions and announced that he would face the charges squarely and would not quit.

He also warned that Mr. Aquino was building a dictatorship by taking control of the House of Representatives and attempting to install a pliant Supreme Court.

Chilling effect

Court judges and employees across the country declared a “holiday” on Wednesday in protest against Mr. Aquino’s moves against Corona, saying that what will be on trial is the rule of law and the independence of the courts.

“While we support the reform agenda of the President, its implementation must respect and not subvert the constitutional allocation of power,” Roan Libarios, president of the 50,000-strong Integrated Bar of the Philippines, told Agence France-Presse.

“This is sending a chilling effect. This sends a signal to judges that if the President does not like your ruling, they can make life difficult for you, or worse [you may] be impeached and removed,” Libarios added.

In an address to evangelical bishops and pastors in Malacañang for a dialogue later yesterday, Mr. Aquino said that in moving against Corona, he was simply following his conscience.

“Before the mirror and before God, I can say that at no time did my selfish interests affect my objectives. I’m just complying with my duty that I swore to before my bosses, the Filipino people,” he said.

“I am surprised with the pronouncements of our foes and their allies that I am too populist; that something popular isn’t necessarily right,” the President said.

A question of sovereignty

According to Mr. Aquino, the Philippines is under a democracy and that the Constitution itself says that, “sovereignty resides in the people. All power emanates from them.”

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a member of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution, has slammed the President for using his popularity to justify his attacks on the judiciary. Sovereignty is exercised by the people during a plebiscite and elections and that this sovereign power is vested in all three branches of government established in the Constitution, he said.

“To assume that an overwhelming vote of the people in an election or a high approval rating in a periodic survey is an expression of popular revision of what they have expressed in a constitutional plebiscite is an invitation to disaster,” said Bernas, a noted constitutionalist.

Dictatorial wrath

Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles on Thursday said on the Catholic Church-run Radio Veritas that bishops had themselves experienced Mr. Aquino’s “dictatorial” wrath in the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office fund misuse scandal involving the distribution of vehicles to impoverished dioceses.

“We have long felt this dictatorship, but they cannot impose it because they’re not sure of the military. What the dictatorship did during the time of (Ferdinand) Marcos was to destroy an institution that could pose threats to their plans,” Arguelles said.

“We are looking if he is ruling directly in accordance with the law because if not he can also be impeached,” Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez also said on Radio Veritas.

Mr. Aquino has been at loggerheads with the Church over a controversial reproductive health bill. With reports from Philip C. Tubeza and AFP

Originally posted at 04:32 pm | Thursday, December 15, 2011