The karma of CJ Corona haunts the Senate

In a democracy like ours, we have three pillars or branches of government that is supposedly totally independent from each other, the Executive headed by the President, the Legislative, headed by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House and the Judiciary headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This is the kind of democracy that we learned from the Americans since we've had our 1935 Constitution.

But today the reality on the ground is totally different. These supposedly independent branches of government are no longer independent of each other. Thanks to this ill-fated 1987 Constitution that has allowed the political elite to dominate Philippine politics, a politics of patronage. This independent branch of the government called the Legislature has yielded its independence to the Executive. We saw this when Pres. Benigno Aquino III demanded that Congress file an impeachment case against then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

When the resolution for impeachment reached the hallowed halls of Congress, in less than an hour, the majority of our members of Congress impeached CJ Corona without reading the papers or did any debate, the resolution was passed. If there is anything that members of Congress do in the Congress hall, it is to debate against each other. But no. Malacañang promised the immediate release of the Priority Development Assistance Program or pork barrel funds for those who would do Malacañang's bidding.

The impeachment case triggered the Senate trial of CJ Corona before the Senate and in the end 20 Senators gave the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a guilty verdict. And history was made when the Executive and the Legislative branches ousted the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The gate was finally opened for Pres. Aquino to name a new Chief Justice to the Supreme Court in the person of Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno. But two years after his ouster, the karma of CJ Corona is now haunting the Senate.

Yes we have seen those disbursements by the Department of Budget and Management  releasing P100 million to the Senators' pork barrels just to ensure that they voted to convict CJ Corona. No matter how you look at this, it is plain and simple bribery! This will be officially known when the Supreme Court rules against the Disbursement Acceleration Program  that was created by DBM Sec. Florencio Abad whose name also appears in the Napoles list.

The Napoles List, regardless of the source, has now broken the back of the Philippine Senate, with majority of our Senators included in that list and a host of congressmen and women suspected to have used or misused their pork barrel through fake NGOs created for the purpose of funneling government money into their personal accounts. I strongly believe that the Philippine government today has been broken beyond mending.

But what do you hear in the streets? People are still glued to their TV sets and radios waiting for this political drama to unfold just like any other reality TV drama series. But this is no drama. We are talking about our political leaders who took upon themselves to use public money as if it were theirs in order to enrich themselves. Yet there are still calls from the Senate to bring Napoles and Ben-Hur Luy back to the Senate as if Napoles would change her tune and sing a better one for our senators.

I dare say that the Senate and Congress have lost their moral authority to investigate their own peers. I fully agree with Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo who said last Wednesday, "Regardless of whether the lists were truthful or not, these lawmakers linked to the Priority Development Assistance Program fund racket must go on leave out of delicadeza. All those mentioned in the list must take a leave of absence for at least six months so that there could be an orderly investigation."

So if Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Teofisto Guingona III would insist on requiring Napoles and Ben-Hur Luy to be continuously investigated, I believe that the Supreme Court should stop the committee in its tracks as this so-called investigation could turn into a whitewash. If there is anything that this country needs, it is to fix our system of governance, which has become rotten to the core. People should march in the streets in protest!

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