Same bananas

Same bananas

In my News Writing class two weeks ago, we were asked what we thought on President Noynoy Aquino's lashing out on Chief Justice Renato Corona in his speech delivered at the National Crime Justice Summit. As I told in class, the tone in which P-Noy seemed to be an indication of indirect encroachment on the autonomy of the Supreme Court, stating that the judicial body was getting in the way of his reform agenda. Eventually, I was categorized under the "legalists", upholding the laws and institutions; those who affirmed his tirades were grouped under "political", going beyond the institutions and examining its quality.

I am not sympathetic to Corona. My limited knowledge shows me that there are several circumstances in which the Supreme Court, which he heads, ruled in favor of Former President Gloria Arroyo - the declaration of the unconstitutionality of the Truth Commission, the Temporary Restraining Order on her travel ban among other things. Corona was Arroyo's midnight appointee, holding the chief position in the highest court of the land. We see that he is greatly indebted to the previous president.Whether he is acting to return the favor (which, as pointed out by many, is more likely) or that's really what his judicial knowledge tells him to do so, we have yet to know. He is already impeached.

Nor I am sympathetic to Arroyo. More than anything, I am with others who push for her conviction (and others who also played a part) in the shenanigans that were eminent throughout her administration. Legal and political maneuverings have been employed left and right seen by many as her means to survive from the grave unscathed. Evidence that would pin her beyond reasonable doubt does not seem to be of reach yet, but proof from various witnesses, records and ramifications of everything that happened in her administration almost always reveals her accountable.

That does not mean I am entirely in favor of the steps the current administration has done in pursuit of its agenda of eradicating corruption. As my News Writing professor aptly puts it, "Arroyo is the symbol of corruption" for the Aquino administration, hence their aggressiveness in convicting her. True enough P-Noy's first Executive Order was the establishment of the Truth Commission, meant to investigate the plunder and corruption in GMA's term and the joint COMELEC-DOJ panel which swiftly arrived at the conclusion that she was guilty of electoral sabotage upon examining the election documents leading to release of her arrest warrant which prevented her from leaving the country.

At the bright side, at least we know those we know who have "sinned against us" will not be met with impunity. But the rather rash actions of the current administration against the old one appeals to me with certain unease. After all, the Aquino administration also had his share of maneuverings in order to detain GMA, in the same way that the former president puppeted the politico-legal strings to her advantage.

And this can be seen from the very actions the government has taken that the Supreme Court "blocked", christening them as barriers to reform: the Truth Commission, the COMELEC-DOJ Panel and the recent one, the impeachment of Renato Corona.

This one's a really interesting development to the GMA story, and shall I say, a very disturbing one. Inquirer.net, from whom I learned of the event, told that the decision came after a hastily convened caucus of Liberal Party and its allies, which produced the articles of impeachment against the Chief Justice just after three hours, signed by more than 1/3 of the Congress. All these "to appease an angry President Benigno Aquino III."

Certainly, she and her administration had their more than fair share of unscrupulous practices. Let us note however, that they are also acknowledged as skilled movers within the limits of the law, diverting herself away from the attention and wrath of the many numerous times - pork barrel to her supporters, executive clemency to Erap for starters. The latter, which marked the last years of her term, was described desperate on her part, "she was desperately clinging on to power to save herself," my Politics and Development professor would tell me.

Aquino, on the other side of the coin, is seen as the total opposite of Arroyo - the "reformer" of a corrupt system. While no charges of the same cases have been filed against him, this does not mean that our incumbent president is incorruptible or that he does not have a dirty secret hidden elsewhere. What we are sure of is that he and his administration are greatly intent to convict the former President that they create drastic measures, bordering between the constitutional and unconsitutional, between "just" and "unjust".

Time and again we are told to look into the quality of our institutions. When you have a questionable judicial body and an executive branch aggressively bent on pinning her down with seemingly little attention to fulfilling its other promises, it is difficult to see the real difference. The two major figures pitted against one another in this executive-judicial cockfight are crudely same bananas. We have to thank Arroyo's 9  years in administration for making her the criminal we want to convict badly and Aquino's family background, whose influence on our president's political decisions are not yet markedly defined, for putting him on roughly the same page with her.

In his status update, my friend pointed out Arroyo and Aquino's one important similarity: they give away government positions to their supporters. Not that there's anything wrong, except that when you put an incompetent or unqualified for the job, you are putting the quality of service down the line. Same banana.

The current administration is too keen on political cleansing and yet how it plans to actually reform the systemic corruption remains to be seen. Purging the "sinners" will not bring us anywhere if the same old structure that produced them is still allowed to perpetuate.

In the process of pursuing their goals, both parties engaged in methods that lay beyond the legal, constitutional and political "comfort zones". Perhaps, in adamantly wanting Arroyo to be convicted, Aquino is becoming like Arroyo himself.