Fudging and Filipino Legislators

Let me try to characterize the Philippine social value called "Fudging". If we flip through the Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary, skipping past a particularly popular American obscenity because it is not relevant to his inquiry, we come across the definition we need:

• Fudging: a propensity to work around the edges of the law for personal gain.

It derives from the Latin word fudgare, which is the infinitive expression of a verb meaning "to cheat benignly". Roman gladiators used it when they laced their loin cloths with hot chili pepper, at least preserving their family valuables from the maws of hungry lions.

"Hey Ben Hur, pass the Tabasco sauce, eh?"

Well, the inquiring mind of Joe America sees the Philippine Congress as being in a bit of a predicament because fudging has been, until now, an accepted Filipino social value. But that has changed.

Bam! Has it changed.

It changed because we had the page turning, dial flipping drama of Chief Justice Corona biting the proverbial impeachment dust at the hands of his Excellency, President Aquino, who pursued the case like a pit bull on a fluffy toy poodle.

The heavy mace of punitive embludgenment (note to self; add this fine descriptive word to the HDNWD) was called an "SALN", a particularly simple document that asks elected officials to add up what they own and what they owe and put it on paper. But the math was a little much for the Chief Justice, no matter the 26 years of education you are likely to find in his curriculum vitae. So the President and all his men, and a few women to boot, whacked the Chief Justice upside the head and tossed him under the historical bridge like a log heading downriver into the West Philippine Sea.

Well, in truth, it was not the math that nailed the Chief Justice. It was fudging.

He skirted around the edges of the law on his SALN, concocting some weird interpretation of bank secrecy laws meaning that his hidden and potentially ill-gotten wealth could be socked away in a thick iron vault under no eyes but his own. He did not have to enter dollars on his SALN. That is the way an incompetent Chief Justice fudges. He interprets laws to his personal benefit.

The Chief Justice also intermingled money from businesses and relatives and his own accounts in such a web of confusion that it would take 23 senators from now to eternity to figure out exactly whose is what. That is another way to fudge.

Alas, whereas fudging was perfectly fine in 2011, and everybody was doing it. It is processa non grata in 2012. That is, it is illegal.

And double alas, we have a bunch of representatives who impeached the fluffy puppy and a bunch of senators who convicted him who are also sitting on SALN's prepared under the 2011 Filipino Code of Conduct, where "to fudge" carried a certain macho bearing, as "man, we are screwing ordinary citizens  and pulling the wool over their blind and ignorant eyes; aren't we rich and grand!"

If the spotlight turns on the hooks and crooks in the legislative math-making, we'll likely find half the government out on its ass in the middle of the road. So the legislators have called a "time out". They are huddling and muddling and trying to figure out a way out of these troublesome woods. Once they discover how screwed up the SALN's of their colleagues are, they must decide what to do.

I have an idea.

Just declare amnesty. Stamp each SALN "accepted as filed" and move on. But next year's damn well better be precise to the decimal points and it had better include dollars and Russian rubles and even that well-tattered scrap of paper called the euro.

Recognize that social values have changed.

People who lived by the old values ought not be punished because the rules have suddenly changed.

"Well, then, Chief Justice Corona should be pardoned," you might argue. "He should be given his job back."

No, no. His warped SALN was relevant to his competence, and the impeachment an expediency for a greater good. His error strewn SALN proved his judicial injudiciousness. There was no intent to prove theft; there was intent to prove bad ethical character. A Chief Justice is paid to be a law-based and high-minded arbiter of disputes. He is not supposed to use his expertise to manipulate laws for personal gain.

A legislator is not an objective arbiter of the laws. He is a writer of laws, wherein the laws reflect the preponderance of the political ideology in place at the time. In other words, a legislator is PAID to be political. A Chief Justice is paid to be NON-POLITICAL.

So the legislative SALN's that may not add up don't prove anything with regard to a legislator's ability to write laws. Besides, who needs the hassle of trying to sort out all that paper muck when Filipinos are starving and many poor women are uneducated about birth control?

The main point is to move on. Certainly, the Philippines loves a good blood bath. The sensationalist television stations would love to see hundreds of legislators with their eyeballs gouged out, lying in the middle of Roxas Boulevard or wherever they'd get dumped. And the tabloid press, masking as mainstream newspapers, would love to rumble out edition after edition of 196 point headlines screaming which legislators couldn't add things up right.

The legislators that FUDGED!

But, the glory of gore aside, it would be better to focus an intense spotlight on 2013 SALN's as the clear benchmark of present wealth. And then 2014 and subsequent years to examine change. 

The point is made.

The point is clear.

Fudging is now a swear word.

Move on. Get transparent, get honest, and get some bills passed.

Arroyo, Santiago, Marcos, and Get Real Post

When I lived in the U.S., I would tune into C-Span, the television network that airs broadcasts of the Senate and House in action. It is a patriotic place of contention and argument, bias and posturing, facts and reason. Some days civil, most days down and dirty.

The Supreme Court impeachment trial showed me something similar. Patriotic people, contentious and argumentative, biased and posturing, wrestling with facts and reason. Most days were down and dirty.

But you know, the Philippines has moved FORWARD and HIGHER, both with the outcome of the trial, and the democratic maturity demonstrated in the proceeding. It has moved FOR transparency and accuracy of public reporting by government employees. It has moved FOR integrity in the Supreme Court, a fundamental requirement for independence and respect.

No revision to the bank secrecy law is required, I think, as the Senate has declared clearly that SALN's must include dollar-denominated deposits. Case law is as good as written law and anyone who purposely withholds dollar deposits does so at considerable peril.

I'm guessing that one outcome of the trial will be much more attention and documentation put behind the SALN's. That's good.

The one law I would suggest OUGHT to be added is an act that creates a regulatory agency that oversees broadcast and print media. Today these media are self-regulated and pretty much out of control. If there is an ethical foundation for news reporting, it is not very strict. Rumor and borderline slander make up much of the sensationalist reporting. Media form a loose and irresponsible mob, in the main, more interested in titillating and attracting audience than integrity of reporting. This is not in the public interest.

I'm not that familiar with the political parties or persuasions of the senators. I found most of the arguments thoughtful and, frankly, uplifting. The exceptions were the dark political accusations of Senator Arroyo, the lunatic ranting of Senator Santiago, and the odd argument of Senator Marcos that puts the Bill of (personal) Rights above the Constitution. All three gave great arguments for continuing the ways of the non-transparent and corrupt.

I trust that Get Real Post will emote and rationalize away the proceeding as the opposite of what it was. They will claim it confirms the vacuity of the Filipino, and their vindictiveness.

No, no. You won't find much respect for democratic process at Get Real Post. The real vacuity rests with the values of GRP editors and its loyal thugs.

I hope President Aquino has a happy visit with President Obama in the U.S. next week. President Obama will be thoroughly briefed on the outcome of the trial, you may be assured.

Then President Aquino ought to return to the Philippines and go to work on constructive acts. Get out of  political name-calling, and do some work. He's got less than four years left.

He was grossly out-of-line during the trial as he or his spokesmen meddled in Senate affairs.

It is good that he is enthusiastic about fighting corruption. It is bad that he lacks a certain discipline. He displays the same kind of loose discipline that got Chief Justice Corona in trouble.

He also tends to shade his appointments toward friends rather than competence. He needs to go with competence. His selection of the Supreme Court Chief Justice will be under a huge microscope.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Do you know why I love the Philippines and Filipinos? Because they have character.

They're good, they're bad, they're ugly.

Take the impeachment trial. Senator Enrile is a good guy. He holds the wisdom of the ages in his still brilliant legal mind. Sure it takes him some time to piece his sentences together, to rummage through the crowded or clouded memory banks to find precisely the right words to line up, to make every sentence mean something. But if you wait patiently, you find impeccable logic and profound thinking. Like the last two questions he asked that demonstrated clearly that the bank secrecy laws and SALN are NOT in conflict, leading even a half-wit to figure out that SALN requires voluntary disclosure of dollar amounts . . . or resignation because you can't live up to the oath.

Well, also not grasping the notion is the defense who clasped desperately to any log they could find as they shot down the river toward destiny. Interestingly, they lost control when the defense took over the trial and they got upended by calling the Ombudsman to the stand.

But lead counsel Cuevas was another good guy. Sure, he was stuck with defending a slimeball, but somebody's got to do it. He had to stand at the mike and face the condemnation of Enrile as the other attorneys slunk down in their chairs as the Chief Slinker Corona exited during his infamous walkout. Other attorneys were evidently in on the ploy, but poor Mr. Cuevas was not. Still, he hung boldly in there, apologizing and doing all he could do to protect his ill-mannered client.  Throughout the trial, he had to work in a public spotlight with and against colleagues who were friends and former students of his. But he stuck to the high road, vigorously arguing the law and the facts, slanted to reinforce his interpretation of the law.

One of the "bads" was the Chief Justice who redefines slime-in-a-robe . . . offering up any excuse, any whine, any political attack in the name of vengance. His walk-out will define him for life, and his pathetic look, sitting eyes down in his wheel chair, getting reprimanded like a child.

And I put President Aquino among the bad, too, for this particular exercise, the trial. He just could not shut up, never understanding that his political condemnations of the Chief Justice during the trial were exactly the thing we hate about the Chief Justice: it's called meddling. Reaching for the court of public opinion rather than the principle of justice, the principle that Mr. Corona deserves a trial untainted by Executive opinion.

One ugly was that goody-two-shoes Keh fellow, who took it upon himself to go directly to Senator Enrile, as if he, Keh, were an esteemed part of the judicial process because he is idealistically pure. Well, he got what he deserved. A belt whipping on national TV.

The other ugly was whipping the belt . . . Senator Santiago. She used to be refreshing, her candid rants putting people in their place. But now every time she steps to the microphone, there is anger in every word. Maybe she should consider retiring, eh? The Senate is a demanding job, and no one will ever be able to live up to the perfections that she demands. She has become a bore, not refreshing.

And for me, personally, it has been a delight watching the various senators perform. I say "perform" because I think they do a lot of acting. My favorite was young Estrada, and I'm sorry to understand that he is close to the Arroyos. He has a disarming way of laughing at things. We never quite know what he is laughing at, but he laughs a lot, and sometimes I suspect he is laughing at us. That's very different than the stiff formality we see in other senators, and I like it.

Perhaps the ugliest of the uglies are the media, the sensationalists posing as journalists.

No dirt, no rumor, no slander is too cheap for them to blaze in the headlines. I suppose they don't have enough staff or professionalism to actually dig for facts, to write in-depth stories that interview several perspectives. To do thoughtful pieces. No, they take the quick hit, the vivid display of shock and surprise, and wrap it in tissue paper. Then put it in the headlines. Then look for the anger that flows forth to add "substance" to the story.

I look around my neighborhood and I see more goods and bads and uglies. They are all over the place. More goods than bads. More bads than uglies.

And I find myself, like Senator Estrada, inclined to laugh a lot.

And so I am happy here.

Down to the Wire

The impeachment trial is nearly over. No one is predicting a win except the defense and prosecution. Both predict a win, or at least are arguing vociferously right down to the wire.

It is easy to see why acquittal is possible. The $2.4 million dollars and P80 million have been reasonably explained away by Mr. Corona. Bank secrecy laws. Comingled funds. Unclear SALN rules. After 45 years of professional work, an inheritance, money from sale of property, it is within reason that he would have this amount. Is five properties out of line? Maybe or maybe not, given the entangled family web that is the Coronas. If Mr. Corona were a top-flight judge with above-board, objective, apolitical views, and an honorable attitude regarding transparency, there would be no conviction.

But that is not the case. Mr. Corona has stonewalled his information, fought all the way, issued political condemnations of the Executive and Legislative branches as well as the Ombudsman, prosecution attorneys and media. He argues that this is to protect the independence of the judiciary whilst he has blatantly tried to undermine the reputation and standing of the other branches of government. "His" court has been instrumental in blocking interviews with Supreme Court Justices that were fundamentally important to many of the impeachment charges. That's why they were dropped.

Here is why I would vote for conviction:

• It is a political call, not legalistically pure.

• Mr. Corona did not report substantial assets. The excuse-making reflects a fundamental opposition to transparency. Transparency is critically important to ending corruption. Every Supreme Court case going forward will come down against transparency in the future if he remains in his seat.

• Acquittal would empower the Supreme Court, make it the dominant of the three branches of government; unassailable by impeachment, unapproachable by Executive, run by a political man of weak legal ethics.

If the Senate acquits, the Philippines will remain locked down in hidden accounts, precious little transparency, and weaker Executive and Legislative branches. The courts will remain under the direction of a Chief Justice who does not represent the Philippines responsibly or apolitically or, in my opinion, competently. Mr. Corona is guided by forces other than the law, and that is the definition of corruption.

The courts will remain a barrier to transparency and honesty.

That's bad.

Looking Through Bear Dung and Get Real Articles

A number of years ago, I was hiking up a wild mountain in Alaska with a naturalist who would not go anywhere without his bear gun. He was a realist naturalist, I suppose, and understood that the large creatures in that part of the woods would eat first and growl later. We came across a big pile of bear dung, fairly fresh. He took a stick and flipped through the shit to examine what the bear had been eating.

Reading Get Real Post is a little like that.

As you probably know, the editors of that blog site have banned me from commenting there. They view me a little like Corona views the Ombudsman, always poking around in uncomfortable places. Getting too near to the truths that threaten their intellectual or emotional fabric. So am relegated to having to comment in a side hallway rather than the courtroom of direct and honorable argument.

Well, they have delivered the normal tripe about Chief Justice Corona, the rationalizations that extremists are inclined to cling to as their icon of virtue turns into an out-of-touch, blathering, sniveling malcontent on nationwide television. The Chief Justice behaves rather like a large two-year old on a three hour tantrum and the Get Real proud patrons try to tell us how cute he is.

Pathetic is different than cute.

As it was my commentary regarding an article by Get Real scribe Arche that got me banned, I take special interest in his articles. I find that he is an intelligent guy, not unkind, writes well, but is evidently pinned to the same agenda as the editors, and doesn't mind being the berries in the Get Real turds.

Here's what he writes about those who would find fault with the undignified Corona meltdown.

• Despite what Filipinos everywhere said about demanding the truth from Corona’s mouth, they are not really after the truth; they are only after someone whom they can verbally beat up like a lingual punching bag. We are not a truth-based society; instead, we are a ridicule-based society, especially when people are convinced that, in repeatedly demeaning the respondent’s image

Let's see, Mr. Corona spent three hours beating up on dead men, presidents, government officials, legislators, and prosecuting attorneys, blaming and whining and crying his way in self indulgent self pity. Filipinos are supposed to, what, sit back in admiration of his judicial bearing and intellectual might?

When he signed his waver, people actually cheered. It is what they want. Transparency. Then he pulled his dirty trick. On the people. They are supposed to roll over and praise the guy?

• One would seriously think that if Corona intends to get away from everything through acting, he would be more creative than to act “sick” and instantly earn the ire of the Filipinos who simply can’t move on from the Arroyo incident. And yet he went sick.

Indeed, his driver and car were ready for his quick exit . One would seriously think that is masterfully unplanned, impromptu accidental arrangement.

He exited full strength. He got sick after he was stopped from fleeing by the Sergeant at Arms. It is called "loser's limp", like when the star player whose team is getting pulverized suddenly ends up with an injury that serves as his excuse for not being responsible for anything that transpired on the field. And the blind hyper-allegiant fans gets suckered in. Rather like some blog article writers.

When Chief Justice Corona was wheeled back to the courtroom, he did not even have the grace or courage to look ONCE, from his wheel chair, at Senator Enrile as he spoke.

• And now, we have another prospect of mistrial based on “grave abuse of discretion.”

Right. Abuse of discretion. I tell you, the bear is crapping big now. Presiding Senator Enrile abused Chief Justice Corona by using his discretion to allow him to speak. The man kept running on after Senator Enrile interrupted three times to respectfully suggest he was out of order. Corona didn't care. He was on a mission.

• Corona not only signed his waiver authorizing government bodies to examine his accounts, he is also giving Filipinos the opportunity to check out the accounts of the other politicians by challenging them to sign their waivers too!

His second surprise, making his waiver contingent on 189 other signatures, was a vindictive dirty trick. On the people. It made a mockery of transparency. I fear Arche is trying to reconstruct by dumping a whole bottle of perfume into this growing pile.

• In many aspects, Corona’s dare was pretty nifty, hitting two birds with one stone. The first bird was the reputation of his persecutors. The second one was the hypocrisy of the Filipinos, attempting to uphold the rule of law only when it suits their egotistic purposes.

Yes, and that's pretty nifty, too, slandering the entire Filipino nation as indulging in hypocrisy, as you write this tripe.

The only attitude I see from the normal Filipinos around me is to want a honest and forthright Chief Justice. You know, Chief Justice Corona could have won the day by reporting the balances in his four dollar accounts, after having effectively rebutted the Ombudsman's Power Point presentation.  He could have won the day by signing the waiver on secrecy, unconditionally. What a statement of credibility and openness that would have been! What a dramatic statement FOR transparency! But he signed it, waved it, read it. Then pulled it back.

Insulting the people who were so generous of heart as to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he walked out.

Insulting the people's earnest representatives in the Senate.

The man is emotionally challenged with a debilitating persecution complex. He is unable to stand the heat in a kitchen he entered surreptitiously, in the dead of night, as a favor to a woman now in jail.

I suggest Arche needs to wipe the . . . umm, film . . . from his eyes and look simply at the disreputable and disrespectful display that was put on by the Chief Justice, with his "vast legal knowledge", in the guise of testimony, last Tuesday. And stop slandering good people who, when they see the king is naked, simply say the king is naked.

Independence of the Courts and Other Misunderstandings

I refrain from critiquing the impeachment hearing and testimony of Chief Justice Corona as I tend to have compassion for the emotionally challenged.

But I'd like to comment on the complaint of court employees that the impeachment of the Chief Justice infringes on the independence of the judiciary.

I'm not convinced court employees even understand what independence means.

Independence does NOT mean left alone to wield justice in some cocoon that seals the courts off from any engagement with the Legislative and Executive branches. All branches of government must interact in order to understand one another, and to provide the checks and balances that keep government from slipping into autocracy or incompetence.

So when the Supreme Court acts on the constitutionality of a law passed by the Legislature, it is not infringing on the independence of the Legislature. It is doing its job. Or if it cites an executive order as unconstitutional, it is not infringing on the independence of the Executive branch. It is doing its job.

The impeachment process is a legal foundation of Philippine democracy. The Legislature is charged with the "job" of assuring impeachable officials are not on a wayward path.  It is astounding to me that workers in the branch of government that protects and serves this democracy somehow see it as an infringement upon their independence. Indeed, in this case, impeachment is aimed at ASSURING independence of the courts.

And the Ombudsman has a job to do, too, and if anyone were to respect this job, it would be an impartial judge.

How is it, then, that court employees feel such a threat?

Well, for one thing, their "leader" has painted the picture that way. One of grand victim.

One clear conclusion that can be drawn from the Chief Justice's opening statement is that he has failed to disassociate himself emotionally and politically from the other branches of government. His hyper-sensitivity to criticism and process has placed him on the defensive, and on the attack, blaming his troubles on the President and the 188 members of the House who impeached him. And on the Ombudsman who was, after all, simply doing her job with the best information available. The Chief Justice having secured all other avenues of access to his financial records.

So here we have a Chief Justice who does not grant other parts of government the right to abide by their oaths of public service. To do their jobs. He sees threats everywhere. He establishes the hyper-sensitive pipelines to other branches of government that erode the essential judicial mandate of separation and impartiality. The scary thing is that the entire roster of court employees seems have to taken up the flag of sensitivity and is waving it in public demonstrations. THEY, too, are undermining judicial independence because they have no idea what impartiality means. THEY, too, are emotional.

It takes discipline to hold to a steady course in a storm. To think proper thoughts rather than bow to emotions. It takes maturity and perspective. The maturity of the wise. The perspective of the aloof, the observer, the man who stands alone on the mountain top and sees all that is happening below, without climbing down and mucking around in what is happening below.

Senator Enrile has it.

The Chief Justice has come down from the mountain and the price is lost independence of and respect for the judiciary. Lost is impartiality. And lost is the TRUST we must have that the judicial mind is an extraordinary mind, an objective mind, that can reflect on all facts and render clear judgment.

No.

Impeachment is not an infringement on independence of the courts.

It ASSURES independence by making sure the Chief Justice is influenced by no forces other than law, fact and reason.

His personal sensitivity is wrong for the top judicial official in the land. His need to blame and make excuses and whine undermines the impartial integrity of the courts. The bedrock of its independence.

Blowing Whistles and Getting Flayed

I tell you, this impeachment trial is wonderful television. I had to kick my kid off his cartoons in order to watch Moe hammering Curly with a big wooden mallet the other day. And the raving Queen of Hearts offed Mr. Keh's head with her angry hatchet, somewhat dulled by abundant use.

The prosecution looked cool. The defense looked stressed; the microphone popped as beads of sweat dripped down and exploded into the sound man's earphones. The defense positively begged for an extra day to prep their final witness.  As if truth required rehearsals.

Let me assure you, my kid will not be watching cartoons next Tuesday.

My first thought, watching Mr. Keh suffer as if his skin were being flayed, was that whistle-blowing is a dangerous thing to do hereabouts. What would you do if you got some information you found rather important, but unproven? I think I would have given it to the prosecution, but Mr. Keh did otherwise.

But it's rather like journalism, this whistle blowing. You toot the whistle or you write a cutting edge piece and you find yourself cut in pieces along the edge of the road, your brains resting somewhere in your helmet about 50 meters off the side of the road.

Or, if you run a school, you find your school is shut down.

I think Senator Santiago was a tad rough on the guy, and she ought to up her medication dosage or learn a little about the art of understatement. Like Senator Enrile. He chopped the dude down with about six words: "I may hold you in contempt."

If you listen to the defense team, it is THEY who are the whistle blowers. It is they who are the good guys. By God, they are going to show that this attack on the honorable Chief Justice is an evil plot by the President of the Philippines. They are going to instruct us on the truth of the President's nasty, crooked ways if they have to scream it over the crescendo of their shattering case.

I tell you, from this distance the carnage looks a lot like dollars are pouring freely from a Chief Justice's cooked books.

Whistle blowers are by definition honorable people. That's why they blow the whistle. Then the bad guys try to cut them to shreds to diminish their honor and punish them for the audacity of being honorable. That's the game. The whistle blows. The guilty become indignant and lash back.

Do you recognize who is indignant? Who is lashing back?

Not Mr. Keh. He just looks foolish for giving the envelope to Senator Enrile.

The defense has been strutting about indignant from the getgo. Lashing out at everyone.

So I'm wondering, if the defense represents a "good guy" whistle blower, why all this indignity? Why are they strutting around as if their ox has been gored? Where are the facts and why do they have to be dug out by a "hostile" act from the Ombudsman. Where's the maturity, the honor?

And that's another thing. The Chief Justice cries out for "independence" and respect for the judiciary. Why doesn't he give the same consideration to the Ombudsman? That agency of government has a legitimate, respected role to play. Why get her declared a "hostile witness"? Why sully her reputation and independence? THAT is in the best interest of the Philippines? To have a disrespected Ombudsman?

Pots and kettles, geese and ganders.

That's one of the things I've never understood about the Chief Justice. A judge in my eyes always walks with his head upright, calm, mature and with a kind of overarching paternal wisdom that pit bull attorneys don't have to have. Why is the top judge of the land behaving like a pit bull. Where is the overarching sense of reflection and prudence?

Honor would be found in showing his dollar accounts at the outset of the trial. That would be judicial. Why did the Ombudsman have to dredge the dollars out of the cellars of about 10 banks with a shovel and pick axe? Honor would be found in simply and accurately presenting the SALN property listing. Not redefining the facts as the case proceeds.

The defense has come to the point of arguing, "even if Mr. Corona is guilty, you can't find him guilty because of legal technicalities".

How about this notion. I don't give a shit where the information came from, or how it got here, if it is confirmed as accurate. Hang it on the gate. Sneak in through the air conditioning duct in the middle of the night. Text it in via Morse code. I don't care.

I care if this guy representing justice is, beneath his robe or behind his stonewalled bank accounts, a usurper of justice.

• "Usurper", noun, one who undermines with intent to overthrow

I have no idea where Mr. Corona got his money. I have no idea why he did not explain it on the SALN.

I have no idea why he is fighting so shamelessly. Blaming everyone else. Stonewalling behind legal technicalities and bank secrecy laws.

It is not the demeanor of a whistle blower. Or a judge.

But I confess.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my own objective bearing. I think it was when Mr. Corona appeared in court with about a dozen attorneys. The "guilt" sign went off in flashing neon letters above that huge pack of slavering wolves.

It did not exactly scream "humility", did it? Or good will.

So, for me, it has been "guilty until proven innocent".

That's wrong.

I admit it.

Mr. Corona deserves his day in court.

Then our good Senators can throw him under the bus.

Impeachment: An Ant in the Briefs

The impeachment trial of Chief Justice Corona is good for the Philippines in so many ways. First of all, it is democracy in action, at the highest level. The World Championship of checks and balances. The trial is being conducted in a dramatically tense, often confrontational tone, but also in an amazingly civil and mature way thanks to the firm and respected guiding hand of Senator Enrile.

The man is a hero in my book.

First of all he is highly old and therefore testament to the idea that if you use your brain it stays sharp, and you have a pile of wisdom to leverage.

Second, he demonstrates that a former wild man and coup leader can settle down into a constructive elder statesman. So I figure there is hope for all the wild-eyed leftists out there protesting in the streets, that they will some day ripen, wise up and contribute something meaningful to the Philippines.

Third, he displays the kind of calm, mature, legally tough presentation and perspective that we wish the Chief Justice could summon up.

The trial also reveals what dunces attorneys can be, and that is always a good thing. The persecution  . . . oops, slip of the keyboard there . . . the prosecution slammed about like a drunk in a barroom fight for a few weeks, trying to figure out where the restroom had been dispatched to, or the evidence. They were fishing, folks. Using the trial to discover. Not present discovery. I don't know if that is endemic in the way Philippine laws work, that investigators can't investigate because they might find out stuff about powerful people, or if the trial was rushed together so fast they could not do a proper job, or what.  They eventually threw out most of the charges to focus on the few that seemed to have some fish behind them. And if conviction is the way of the day, it will probably be on only one point: the guy lied on his SALN.

The defense also got in on the act of the dunce by demanding the Ombudsman testify. They made a loud splash of it and she marched in and laid out a trail of numbers that suggested, not only does the guy have a lot of dollar money stashed here and there, but he is working those accounts like a money launderer would. Like over 700 transactions whipping through something like 80 accounts.

I think this guy is the Teflon man who has been around too many years and the Teflon is peeling off, one scrape at a time. He figured he had three firewalls. One, he was Chief Justice, a high and mighty, and no one would have the audacity to probe their proboscis into his affairs. He is simply too honorable. Second, the Philippine bank secrecy laws are designed to protect scoundrels who launder money. They aren't used as tax havens, but places to clean up dirty cash and send it off for spending by said scoundrels. He deposited there. Third, he figured he had the other justices in his pocket, and, boy, would I like to look at their dollar accounts, too. This is the famous "TRO Court of CJ Corona", with TROs being akin to defecation by kangaroos.

The defense reaction all along has been one of belligerence and victimization. Same attitude regarding the Ombudsman, a position that warrants respect, even if begrudging: "We'll tear her apart and show her to be a fool!" the defense exclaims.

Well, as of this writing, that may or may not transpire.

But the reaction is classic Filipino, neh?

Macho, this Chief Justice and his mighty legal minions. Masters of intimidation and bluster. Not an iota of humble, except that displayed when God is called into the picture, as a Team Player for the defense.

I will say this for the Senate. If they confirm that this character as the kind of Chief Justice that represents the Philippines well, I will join the rest of the world in laughing . . .

You see, a Chief Justice should represent all that is honorable and just about understanding, living and interpreting laws that draw out the best in people. That defend those harmed and express where freedom has its limits. It requires intelligence, knowledge, judiciousness and calm impartiality.

Mr. Corona was stained from the day he accepted a midnight appointment from Ms. Arroyo. He could have worked past that through mature, honorable rulings and leadership of the Supreme Court. But instead he allowed himself to be drawn down into the pit of politics and its ugly recriminations. He displayed rash judgments and thuggish leadership. He refused to recuse himself from cases where he might be seen as biased, and he cast himself as a direct opponent of the President. He cried that the President was challenging the court's independence when it is his own injudicious behavior that threatens the reputation and independence of the Courts. He rebelled against the wholly legal process of impeachment,  groveling in the dirt like the most sorry, pitiful victim imaginable. When he wasn't groveling, he stalked about lording his indignation on anyone who simply wanted answers to reasonable questions. Like, why doesn't your SALN report the money? And exactly where did all that money come from?

The guy is a clown by Western judicial standards.

The Senate can determine what standards are appropriate for the Philippines.

That is another reason the trial is good. It will show us what the Philippines is really about, in terms of ethical renditions for the most important ethical position in the land.