Distasteful

This distasteful impeachment trial has finally come to its terminal point.

It is now a matter of whether the senator-judges will rule on this case with an eye to the next election or on a clear sense of history’s long view of the case at hand. While the trial process proper was profuse with legalese, its consequences are profoundly political.

Something more than the career of one comprehensively vilified man is on the line here. At stake is the harmony, balance and independence of our institutions on which the vigor and reliability of our democracy rests.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago tried to incite a thoughtful discussion on precisely this dimension when she asked the Chief Justice about the implications of this trial on the institutional checks and balances of our democratic government. Her question can only be justly tackled by way of a long and scholarly dissertation on institutional dynamics by the country’s highest magistrate.

Unfortunately, the magistrate on the stand was too weary, too ill, too emotionally drained after months of vicious trial by publicity and too focused on his own defense to adequately respond to a truly provocative query. At any rate, a comprehensive dissertation that does justice to the query might have been ruled irrelevant by lawyers interested only in the narrow technical issues of the case at hand.

We saw, in the course of the Chief Justice’s first appearance before the impeachment court, how the prosecution objected to the defendant’s effort to put in context the technical issues at hand. For the prosecution, context was irrelevant. Denial of political (and even personal) context was the necessary condition for them to nail down their intended victim.

When it was their turn to lay down a case against the Chief Justice, the prosecution complained the defense panel resorted to technicalities to block their effort. At the end of the trial, the prosecution now relies on strict technicalities completely bereft of context to win their case. This is not the final irony of this episode.

For the defense, it is now clear, context is everything.

It is not only the specific facts of the case that needs to be situated in the context of the defendant’s own circumstances. The entire trial needs to be situated in the context of the peculiar politics of this time.

At the start of the trial, I observed in this space that the prosecution panel must surmount a particularly challenging hurdle: the guarantee of tenure.

The guarantee of tenure, enjoyed by members of the judiciary and the constitutional commissions, is an essential ingredient assuring institutional independence. Without that guarantee of tenure, our independent institutions will be vulnerable to political pressure — especially the sort of massive campaign of character assassination this administration feels no qualms about mounting.

Our Constitution sets a high hurdle for offenses considered impeachable. Even that vague offense called “betrayal of public trust” must be put in the context of the specific high crimes preceding it in the constitutional enumeration, such as treason.

If the hurdle for conviction in an impeachment court is lowered in the case at bar, the crucial ingredient of institutional independence will be seriously compromised. Impeachable officers will be vulnerable to every sort of harassment and may be taken out of their posts for such omissions as, say, neglecting to declare a Porsche in their SALN.

The impeachment court’s decision on this case will be precedent setting. It will define the operating environment for our institutions long into the future. The most disastrous outcome here will be the subversion of institutional independence and the checks-and-balances that make our democracy vibrant.

This is the first impeachment trial actually reaching terminal point. The trial of President Joseph Estrada, we all recall, was overtaken by events. The trial of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, sadly, was preempted by her resignation. Unfortunately, her decision not to fight the administration juggernaut was taken as an invitation for more impeachment adventures by those who saw impeachment as a method for consolidating power.

For better or for worse, the next target of the administration’s impeachment tacticians was the Chief Justice.

Unlike the former Ombudsman, however, the Chief Justice decided to stand his ground and fight off the impeachment effort. The decision was the product both of the man’s own conviction as much as it was a dictate of his position. He was the head of the judicial branch. If he succumbs in the face of ruthless intimidation, the independence of the judiciary will be in peril.

Whatever the personal price he had to pay, the Chief Justice cannot simply break and run. If he did, he might as well be damned.

The personal price he had to pay was dear. The administration deployed its entire panoply of instruments for character assassination and intimidation. The Chief Justice was portrayed (nay, caricatured) as the icon of corruption in the judiciary.

Those who know Rene Corona personally will attest that if this man represents anything, it will have to be the legendary Batangueno capacity for frugality and hard work. He lived his life simply, a talented professional with a huge propensity to save.

Destiny thrust him into this most distasteful episode and into the pit of all the manufactured malice. Duty commands him to defend the independence of the institution he leads whatever the personal toll might be.

Here is a man of rare courage adamantly refusing to go quietly into the night. After all the propaganda fades, this is the virtue history will redeem.