An Unsettling Impeachment

by Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez

Before I begin, and before you read this, I would like to make this disclosure. My wife was a court attorney at the office of the Chief Justice for 6 years. However, I only met him once and that was when CJ Corona swore my wife in as a judge. I do not know him as a person or as a Chief Justice except for what most people know from the papers and some amusing office stories I hear from my wife. I am writing this not because of any loyalty for him but because I voted for the Liberal Party and I had high hopes that this party would be the traditional party that could rise above traditional politics. If you think that my thoughts here will be biased because of any of these things I disclosed, then you should skip this piece.


The impeachment of CJ Renato Corona shocks me and leaves a hollow feeling at the base of my stomach. I know that the way I am thinking about this issue and how I am reacting to it places me squarely on the other side of the fence of people I have campaigned for good governance and democratic reform with, but I can’t help it. I have been trying to make sense of my own reaction to this whole event because it bothers me to be thinking so differently from the people I so admire and struggled with for the marginalized, and so far this is the most I can make of how I feel.



I believe that my unease is multi-layered and so I will begin by exploring the layers of it. The first layer of disquiet is this: everyone is so angry at the Court for having shot down the truth commission idea. Truly, I was one of those people who wanted so much to have a truth commission to unearth the perceived evil that the GMA people accomplished. More than that, I wanted her to pay for the evil if indeed it can be proved. However, the truth commission was not so well conceived that it could arguably shown to violate the constitution. In ruling that the executive order (EO 1) creating the Truth Commission is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court’s majority declared the EO violated the equal protection of the laws clause of the Constitution when it singled out the GMA administration as the subject of the Commission’s investigation. The majority believed that there are no substantial distinctions between the GMA administration and other past administrations to justify being singled out in the EO. The dissenters, however, disagreed and believed that it is reasonable to say that the GMA administration is different from other past administrations and can be treated differently. There is no definitive answer either way, and it would have taken a minor revision for the order to be approved by the Court. The Chief Justice sided with the Court’s majority. It is difficult to see why he should be condemned for his stance on an issue which is contentious or for a majority opinion he did not even write. If we wanted that Commission to unearth the evil that GMA Inc was and is, then why didn’t the government lawyers do their job well? Shouldn’t something like this have been crafted with such impeccable legal logic that it could not be faulted for its unconstitutionality? And yet it was so easily shot down, and when it was shot down they didn’t just go ahead and do the revision. I don’t think we should fault the Supreme Court for the administration’s sloppy lawyering. And yet we did—so much that we want CJ Corona to fall for it. Even if the Court was acting out of misplaced loyalty to the fallen ring master, why are they being blamed for the administration’s shoddy work?

I think this is true too for the latest crisis that sparked this unsettling impeachment. When the Court issued a temporary restraining order against the DOJ watchlist which would have allowed GMA to travel, she was not yet charged of any crime and, in fact, the DOJ was still in the process of investigating her for possible prosecution. Unquestionably, the right to travel is in our bill of rights and may be impaired only “in the interest of national security, public safety or public health, as may be provided by law.” Others opine that the there should have been a hearing first before the TRO was issued. But there is no law or rule requiring that. Again, this is not the decision of the Chief Justice but of the En Banc. It cannot be said that the majority of the Court which includes the Chief Justice had no basis in law for its ruling as in fact they were upholding a constitutional right. And yet since the dominant voices in society have determined that they decided wrongly then the Court is wrong and biased despite having legitimate bases for its decisions. Wouldn’t this whole crisis have been averted if the cases against the ex-first couple of corruption had been filed properly and earlier? It had been how many months already since the government was supposed to have prioritized this case, and still they could not come up with a properly filed case. Even if they say, as they do, that it was a difficult case to put together, still they were able to file it over the weekend after the TRO was issued. Why were they so slow before that if they could produce a case instantly when the TRO was issued? Wasn’t this another case of bad lawyering? The administration lawyers just have to admit that they were almost out maneuvered. What could have been their excuse for the delay? And why blame the Court for having decided a case in a way that could arguably have upheld a constitutional right? I am no lawyer, but I am a citizen and I would rather that the Supreme Court err on the protection of a citizen’s rights, no matter how evil, than for it to bend to the will of those in power or the popular sentiment. We cannot violate enshrined rights just because we want to make a person pay for her crimes: that is the slipperiest slope we can slip on. Just remember how our parents allowed Marcos to take liberties on our rights just to defeat the threats to social order.

The second important layer to my unease, and I believe it may be the unease of many others, concerns the very process of how we impeached the Chief Justice. As we now know, the impeachment complaint was passed around blitzkrieg fashion to make sure that the administration party mates and allies in the persecution of GMA signed the document immediately without having to subject this to discourse or deliberation. Classic railroading or bulldozing is what this was. And tactically, this move is extremely admirable. However, what the administration is doing with this impeachment is to accuse one of the leaders of the pillars of our government of corruption and of acting in a way that undermines the will and welfare of the people. Actually, what it is doing is accusing the majority of the Court of being corrupted by GMA Inc as seen in its collegial decisions. Whether the administration intended it or not, such a serious accusation undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court, because at heart we are saying that the Court’s most recent decisions were defined by the undue influence of the immediate past president. With such a serious accusation, one that would set in motion a process that would paralyze the Senate and start another media circus, the accusers should make their accusation with some seriousness grounded on deliberation. Otherwise, this just looks like the vindictive act of one section of the elite against another.

image from wikispaces

A colleague of mine thoughtfully suggested that perhaps the Liberal Party and its allies took on this tactic because they were responding to the very tactics of the enemy. I agree that this was perhaps a response to the perceived reprehensible tactics of GMA and her cohorts to which we were subjected in the last 10 years. She did seem to use the tyranny of her majority to undermine our economic and democratic systems. However, I heard from Secretary Rocamora, a reformer in the administration who heads the Anti-Poverty Commission, that this administration wants to realize reforms profoundly enough so that they cannot be undermined even by a non-reformist government. I admire that sentiment and goal, however, I see this impeachment strategy as a tactic so grossly low, something on the level of GMA herself, that it only furthers the cause of non-democratic governance. I agree with the administration reformers’ strategy that every act that the government accomplishes now should be a precedent as to how we should govern. This makes it doubly disturbing that we will persecute GMA and her allies through the tyrannical acts of an undiscursive and vindictive majority. Just because we are on the side of the good and reform does not justify our means which clearly exhibit the worst of process railroading. Of course, this is allowed by constitutional procedures, but it kills the discursive quest for articulating the just and the good.

The last layer of this controversy that disturbs me is this: ultimately, this whole process is all about the exercise of political power by those who have it. One of the LP traditional politicians actually said on TV that Corona should resign because they have the numbers in the Senate and he should just spare himself the embarrassment. That is just the most crass statement made on the impeachment and it reveals how this whole impeachment is a bullying by the administration of the persons who are an obstruction of their agenda. No matter how just one’s agenda is, one cannot and should not thoughtlessly move to destroy one’s enemy—especially when this destruction could destabilize our already fragile governance system. The recent attacks on the Supreme Court, with their virulence and lack of nuancing, have truly planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of the public. With such an intense accusation, I as a citizen would like to know if the Supreme Court’s decisions are grossly biased for GMA and if indeed they are a hindrance to our quest for justice and reform. In the end, this is what the impeachment is about. The administration feels that the Supreme Court cannot function as the supreme arbiter of the meaning of the laws and ours acts in relation to these—that is their message to the public. I for one, as a member of that public, a citizen who voted this party into power, would like to know if indeed this is true. And so the Chief Justice should not resign! The citizens need to know if they can trust their Supreme Court. Of course, all this hinges on the hope that the Senate will remain fair and just in the impeachment trial. And or course they must, because now more than ever we need to know.

I should be rejoicing during this time. Now that people who have the same reform agenda as I have are in power and they can get things done—and hopefully the right way. But I am not rejoicing. I am very unsettled. And of course, the more political among us will say that I am being naïve again. That in the real world, we need to act in any way that will push forward our reforms—and to a level that reform will be difficult to dismantle. However, we have seen how their zeal can actually damage procedures of good governance. These tactics could actually further entrench the ethos of injustice, corruption, and the tyranny of the majority.

I know that those pursuing GMA feel that they are doing all they can to fulfill their moral duty. And I agree: making those who have wronged us pay is a moral duty. However, to do our moral duty, we must do it properly—with attention to detail, respect for procedure, impeccable lawyering, and utmost respect for the spirit of the rule of law and democracy. The moral crusaders and reformists must remember that they are standing in for a majority whose genuine will and aspirations they do not really understand or know. And as they try to build a world that they imagine does respond to the will of the majority, they should not destroy the processes that will allow this majority to one day represent themselves.