If senator-judge and presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile will not allow Corona’s defense lawyers to present the SALN of legislators and cabinet secretaries, as well as that of President Noynoy Aquino, I would suggest that they feed all the information they can mine into social media. And let it all hang out.
Since their client has been subjected to trial by publicity, they should have no compunctions about giving everyone else the same treatment.
But they shouldn’t try to get a free ride on the efforts of the PCIJ. They should dig up the dirt and find the skeletons themselves.
It would be interesting—nay, exciting—to see how “honest” our honorable senator-judges and prosecutor-congressmen are compared to the cheapened chief justice of the Supreme Court.
But the information dug up about the “honorables” assuming that is incriminating, should in no way mitigate the sins of Corona—if, indeed, he has sinned. The impeachment court should proceed full speed with exposing whatever skeletons Corona may have that make him unworthy of the post of chief magistrate.
They should then dispose of him, if that is the just and logical verdict, and be done with that case. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Then, let it be turn of the “honorables” in the legislature, as well as those in the executive and judicial branches of our government. And, oh yes, the military, as well. Plus the local governments. Let them be accountable, too.
Remember what the Lord Jesus Christ said, in the incident involving the adulteress? ”Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.”
The New Testament has never really made clear what it was that Jesus did, after making that statement, that caused the Jews to back off and leave the adulteress alone. But back in college, I came upon a short story entitled, Writings in the sand, which I adapted for a radio play on UST’s station DZST.
In that story, Jesus wrote in the sand the sin of each one who attempted to stone the adulteress, thus stopping the would-be tormentor in his tracks. As it turned out, no one was without sin, thus no one dared cast the first stone.
But let us give our honorable president, honorable senator-judges and congressman, and honorable members of the cabinet, as well as the honorable governors, mayors and military brass the benefit of the doubt.
Let us assume that many of them belong to one of two groups, the first being the ones who have no sin (i.e., no unexplained wealth, no Corona-like SALN), and the second being the ones who want to make a clean breast of it (like Budget Secretary Butch Abad).
Needless to say, there may be a third group: those who will cite every conceivable legal technicality, plus a Supreme Court TRO, to avoid having to answer the question: Did you or did you not cheat?
Then let the public judge them. Give those in the first group a ticket to heaven. Consign those in the second group to purgatory. And give those in the third group an express ticket to hell.
Everyone is spewing motherhood statements about the need for honesty in public office and the prosecution of grafters and thieves. The public should cheer them on and dare them to step forward and be found out which group they belong to—everyone, from. Aquino and the members of his cabinet to the legislators, the magistrates, military brass and local government officials.
In this regard, Renato Corona, who always waxes self-righteous whenever he speaks and loves to walk around with palms pressed prayerfully on his breast, should courageously step forward, take the stand, truthfully explain his omissions in his SALN and bare his dollar deposits. He can then be classified accordingly.
Until he does so, he can’t blame the public for assuming that he belongs to Group Number Three.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that no one will willingly step forward to be counted. In such a case, I urge Corona’s defense team to take the lead and dig up all the skeletons about everyone in public office, applying the Scorched Earth strategy. In other words, if their client will go to hell anyway, they might as well bring everyone else with him.
What the defense lawyers could do is to appeal to their online allies, especially those residing in the United States, to dig up the real estate records and pertinent business and financial information, if any, of our country’s top leaders.
You can be sure that there is a gold mine of incriminating information just waiting to be dug up. And I bet that, after reading this, we’ll witness a drove of VIPs making a beeline for America to assign the ownership of incriminating assets to persons whose names don’t sound like that of relatives.
Of course, that’s underestimating the “honorables.” Having seen what happened to the hidden assets of Marcos and Estrada, it is likely that every public official with something to hide has already covered his or her tracks.
But covering one’s tracks is not that easy in America. A diligent researcher can always trace back the ownership history of business, financial and real estate assets. These are readily available on request, for a fee, and a lot can even be accessed online.
The problem, though, is knowing where to start. Once such assets have already been efficiently laundered or shielded by dummies, it becomes a matter of luck and relentless detective work to hit pay dirt.
But word-of-mouth or tsismis is something that you can always depend on among Pinoys in America. For instance, in Daly City, there was a lady realtor who loved to brag about the plush properties that she purchased for the Arroyos. She hasn’t been seen in public of late and, even if she were to be found, she has probably been sworn to uphold the Code of Omerta. But there are others like her who can‚Äôt help letting off hot air.
If Noynoy Aquino is really serious about establishing the Daang Matuwid, he should dare to do this. In fact, he should encourage his allies to help Corona’s defense team in digging up the dirt and bringing out the skeletons in everyone’s closet.
Let it all hang out and see who will emerge without sin.
( [email protected])
