Move Forward

After five months, the Philippine Senate, sitting as an impeachment tribunal, rendered its decision on the complaints initiated and filed by the House of Representatives against Chief Justice Renato C. Corona. The overwhelming verdict, by a vote of 20 to 3: the Chief Magistrate is guilty and the punishment of removal from office has to take effect immediately. He will also be perpetually banned from holding public office.
The Chief Magistrate immediately accepted the verdict even as he continued to maintain his innocence. “I am innocent. There’s no truth to the allegations against me in the Articles of Impeachment. My conscience is clear,” he stressed.
He said he was saddened by the verdict, especially since he had hoped he would be cleared after facing the charges head on. Corona said he is a victim of bad politics. He said he faced his impeachment with the hope he would be granted justice in accordance with the law and the Constitution, amid the “malicious” allegations against him.
“If this is for the good of the country, I am accepting the calvary that I have suffered. From the start, I had been ready to offer my own life for the country,” Corona said in a statement, adding: “I am entrusting my future and the future of the judiciary to God and the people who are the powers in our democracy.”
While accepting defeat, Corona left a challenge to his critics and accusers to end the “politics of personal attacks” and “vanquish the poison caused by too much divisiveness and unstoppable hatred and anger.” He also urged the people to put to rest the issue of the impeachment for the sake of national unity. “Panahon na upang isulong ang ating buhay bilang isang bansa (It’s time for us to move forward as one nation),” he said.
And because Corona maintained his pledge of innocence to the very end, his words still echoed his bitterness and lack of remorse. Will the people believe any of them? One only has to listen to his conscience and the voice of truth and reason will sound loud and clear.
Indeed, with the long trial, Congress had to temporarily set aside its legislative work and the administration took a pause from major issues such as poverty, rising unemployment, diminishing food supply, high cost of education and lack of school rooms, chairs and books, among others. But it was a necessary, though painful process to remove the shadow of doubt hanging over the Supreme Court as the ultimate dispenser of justice.
Now it is time for everyone to get back to his responsibilities and move to allow time for healing and progress, for the good of the country.