Democracy and autonomy

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY
Ka IkingSeneres

We are a democracy and our Constitution allows the impeachment of the Chief Justice. Simply put, when a Chief Justice is impeached, it does not mean that our democracy is already threatened. The same Constitution provides for the independence of the Judiciary.

There is no question about that, but when a Chief Justice is impeached, it does not also mean that the independence of the Judiciary is already threatened.

The Chief Justice is a person, and if and when he is impeached, it does not mean that neither the Supreme Court nor the Judiciary is already being impeached. Since we are a democracy, we have to go through democratic processes and impeachment is one such process.

Although Chief Justice Renato Corona was already impeached as far as the Lower House is concerned, his impeachment still has to be affirmed by the Upper House, sitting as the impeachment court. It is not the job of the Senate to decide whether to impeach him or not, because he was already impeached. Their job is to decide whether to affirm his impeachment or not.

Since the Constitution allows the impeachment of the Chief Justice by the Lower House of the Congress, there is really no constitutional crisis now as Chief Justice Corona would like us to believe, because it was only him as a person who was impeached, and not the entire Supreme Court. If ever there is a crisis as he would like us to believe, it is probably just a personal crisis that he alone should face, meaning that he should not have dragged the Supreme Court and the entire Judiciary into it.

Being a democracy, we are subject to party behavior and that too, is part of the democratic process. If the Liberal Party decided to impeach Corona as a party action, it was their prerogative to do so, and it was also the prerogative of their own party members to go along with the party decision or not. If they were able to gather the majority as they did, there should be no question about that either, because they are the majority party and it is as simple as that.

Following the logic that an accused person is deemed innocent until proven guilty, Corona should look at his present personal situation simply as that, meaning that he should deem himself innocent, and leave it to the impeachment court to find him guilty, if indeed he is. Perhaps what he is saying is that he should not have been impeached because the Judiciary is independent, but that is not how our democracy works. As it is now, he could not be charged in an ordinary court because of his immunity, but it would be too much to think that he should be immune from impeachment too.

Perhaps Corona knows too well that impeachment is a political process, and not a legal process. The question really is not whether he is guilty or not, but whether it is politically expedient to affirm his impeachment or not. This is probably the reason why he is trying to portray his case as a political issue, to somehow build up the political capital that he does not have.

Meanwhile, his political adversary President Noynoy Aquino has all the political capital that he needs. His popularity rating has already reached about about 80%, breaking all known historical popularity records in the presidency. His move to prosecute Gloria has probably attained about 90% approval, if it is measured now. It remains to be seen how much public approval the move to impeach Corona would get, but it is likely to be very high too, since the public knows that Corona is a protege of Gloria.

We are a democracy and the will of the majority has put President Aquino in power. As his victory in the polls was affirmed further by the steady increase in his popularity ratings, there is no question that he has the solid mandate of the people to do what he wants to do for the good of the people. This is democracy at work, and we should savor it while it lasts, after it was stolen many times by you know who.

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