22nd
I was buying a lotto ticket in Cavite last Friday when I overheard a couple talking about the outcome of the election. The man behind me was telling his companion, “Mabuti nanalo si Noynoy ngayon makukulong na rin si Gloria (It’s good Noynoy won, Gloria will finally be sent to prison).”
I smiled and then asked the man if he had heard that Aquino was considering taking his oath of office before a barrio captain instead of the Chief Justice of the Philippines. He told me he had not. But he added, “Maganda kung gawin niya yun. Isang parangal ’yan sa maliliit na tulad namin (It would be a good idea if he does that. It’s an honor for the little people like us.)”
I must admit that I never saw it that way. I was so caught up in the debate over Aquino’s oath-taking that I forgot all about the meaning of his election. But I was in good company; the dean of the UP College of Law was also distracted by the manufactured crisis. He weighed in on the symbolism of the oath-taking: “He does so because of the symbolisms of that ritual. The oath—prescribed by the Constitution—is administered by the head of an autonomous, coequal department of government charged with the preservation of the words found in the Constitution of the Republic.”
The dean is right up to a point but the man in the lotto line reminded me of the deeper symbolism in the oath-taking: legitimacy in a democracy comes from the ground up, not from the top down. It is conferred not imposed. And so it goes with the appointment of Renato Corona.
I feel bad for Corona. He is not an evil man even though, and this comes not from me but from one of her closest confidants, the one who appointed him is. He is not Gloria’s stooge even though his voting record makes him look that way.
If Aquino had been the one who appointed Corona, the debate over his fitness for the job would have been on his track record and views on critical constitutional issues, not on his cozy relationship with Gloria Arroyo. Corona knows it that’s why he told the media, “Everything I say now will be just words but watch me.”
Corona may yet turn out to be a great Chief Justice but unfortunately he is tainted, branded as someone legally appointed but without legitimacy. And he will always be perceived as the Chief Justice who was appointed to serve as Gloria Arroyo’s get-out-of-jail card.
Corona is made of better stuff than Gloria Arroyo so I don’t understand why he accepted her appointment. She gave him the chief magistrate’s robe but robbed him of his dignity. She did him like a burglar who, after breaking into his house and stealing all his valuables, raided his refrigerator and defecated on his kitchen floor. And he is the clueless homeowner who comes upon his burglarized home, sees the feces on his kitchen floor, and cries out, “Thank God, she didn’t take everything; at least she left something behind.” For all his years of service, that’s how Gloria repays him and he appreciates it. Sad.
