Corrupting the law

A number of well meaning friends insist that the unfair trial of CJ Justice Renato Corona is a small price to pay if it serves as a lesson against corruption. That sounds reasonable enough until you punch the holes and realize that it is more rotten than the detested corruption of overprices. The latter is about money and the former is about ideas and ideals on which a nation is founded. Corrupting the rule of law is far more damaging, far more extensive and more difficult to correct in the long run. This is the meaning of the saying “burning the house to kill a rat.” That is what happened during the Corona impeachment. There are other ways to kill the rat other than by burning the house. It might take longer but it would definitely have been more sane.

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The distinguished author, F. Sionil Jose wrote on the debatable issue. The question is whether an unfair trial is justified by a campaign against corruption. Here is my reply.

“F. Sionil Jose is a distinguished and respected writer. He writes beautiful novels and praised for the essays he has written for the STAR. I hesitated to make a comment on his article on the impeachment trial. But I thought, why not. That is what the democratic space is all about, for each of us to have differing opinions and respect each other despite the differences.

First, let me clear the question of the behavior of Senator Miriam Santiago. She does have a difficulty controlling her temper. That defect deflects from the many wise things she said in the impeachment. But let’s not muddy the pool.

Corona supporters are appalled by the nonchalant way in which the impeachment court accepted manufactured evidence from the prosecution and their stories all proven wrong from small ladies, anonymous sources and evidence in brown envelopes left or thrown at the gate. The manner in which 188 congressmen rushed through the articles of impeachment in 3 hours without bothering to read it while others went along but did not sign was unconstitutional from the start. It was a portent of the kind of trial that would take place.

Yes, there are media people who saw all this but only a few dared to write about it. They were overwhelmed by headlines from major newspapers and broadcast media owned by oligarchs who proudly declare themselves as kingmakers. There are many side issues. But to me the most important is the question of whether an individual can get a fair trial when all the resources of the state is employed against a man who was pronounced guilty in the media even before he could plead his innocence, which I think is a violation of a cardinal principle of justice that a man is innocent until proven guilty.

Fighting corruption through breaking the law is simply not the way to go. As a reviewer of Emile Zola’s J’accuse said when you break the law to correct flaws in a nation, you break the nation. This is my humble opinion.

Corona supporters are fighting for the rule of law. Without it we are sunk with an anarchic free for all and everyone to his own with the powerful having the advantage as we have seen it happen in the impeachment trial with 20-3 voting that he was guilty.

It took 12 years to unravel the truth on just what happened to Dreyfus in 1894 in France, but a few people led by the author Emile Zola dared and made a just trial for all their cause. I hope that other writers will do the same without fear from a government which has employed its resources against an individual. The trouble with shortcuts such as unfair trials is it ends up not correcting society but in fascism that to me is a greater evil we will all regret. Watch how it happens if it is not stopped.  

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Days after Corona’s conviction, President Aquino was on his way to the United States. He was praised for a job well done by President Obama.

“Aquino recently won a major battle in his campaign against corruption with the sacking of the country’s top judge. Aquino has also agreed to let more US troops rotate — but not be based — in the Philippines despite the historical baggage.” President Obama said in welcoming him.

“I’ve always found President Aquino to be a thoughtful and very helpful partner,” Obama said.

“And I think that as a consequence of the meeting today in which we discussed not only military and economic issues, but also regional issues — for example, trying to make sure that we have a strong set of international norms and rules governing maritime disputes in the region — that I’m very confident that we’re going to see continued friendship and strong cooperation between our two countries,” he said. What could be clearer for those who want to see.

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Those who want to know more about Emile Zola, the French author who fought for a just trial for Captain Alfred Dreyfus, should try to get hold of a DVD movie about his life story produced by Warner Bros. Were it not for the names, the country and the date, the story of a campaign for a just trial for Dreyfus is as contemporaneous as the story of Corona’s conviction in the Philippines circa 2012. 

Emile Zola became famous after he wrote the novel Nana. He continued writing book after book, most of them polemical and provocative. In time he became wealthy and lived a comfortable life. It was then that he was challenged to take up the story of the unjust trial of an innocent man. The choice was whether he would sacrifice the hard achieved comforts he now enjoyed by battling the state for the sake of this one man who was convicted unjustly. He chose to help the man but in doing so he also saved France’s honor with the principle of justice as the nation’s foundation. He suffered for taking up the challenge that he could have so easily avoided. 

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There are those who would not wave away the Corona conviction and disagree that it was time to move on. Move on to what? They disagree with the statement that the trial was a testament that “democracy was alive in the country.” On the contrary, democracy was weakened by a trial that did not follow due process and violated the rules of law and evidence.