It’s the Hacienda after all

 

The handwriting on the wall is more apparent now than before, when 188 members of Congress signed the articles of impeachment about a month ago. Soon, the Philippine Senate will convene to determine the fate of Renato Corona, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

With the constant barrage of press releases and new revelations about Corona’s unexplained wealth by anti-Corona crusaders, including the prosecution panel and the government’s propaganda machine, there is now widespread public perception that Corona is guilty as charged. Corona, who’s been so negative to the public eye, could be burned at stake anytime. The impeachment trial is largely a political process and public opinion therefore plays a vital part in the minds of those senators who will make the final judgment.

President Noynoy Aquino ponders about the future of the family-owned
 Hacienda Luisita. Click link to view "Video documentary:Noyynoy's Luisita
http://bulatlat.com/main/2010/04/27/video-documentary-noynoys-luisita/

But the real plot behind the impeachment of Corona is fully more evident now than when it was conceived in haste. The trial of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which everyone thought could be the trial of the century, turns out to be a sideshow, a dud muted by exchanges in the media by angry pronouncements from both pro and anti-Corona camps. Who would expect that Mrs. Arroyo would be happily convalescing from a mysteriously conjured-up illness while under house arrest at the Veterans Memorial Hospital?

As it turns out or as the impeachment denouement is expected very soon, all this “moro-moro” about Renato Corona is not about bias in deciding in favour of his former boss. The impeachment was not even about dismantling Noynoy Aquino’s final stumbling block in prosecuting Arroyo for corruption and election sabotage. It is all about recovering the Hacienda, a last attempt by the Cojuangcos to preserve the family’s sentimental vestige of feudal ownership.

The Senate has five months more to remove Corona from the highest court of the land. Failing that, the Hacienda must be redistributed to its lawful and rightful owners. Redistribution of the Hacienda to the farmers must be made in six months from the day the Supreme Court rendered its judgment on November 22, 2011.

Can the Senate be up to this task?

Judging by the numbers, the Senate needs only 16 senators to convict Corona. Although, a lesser number of magnificent seven of these senators is needed to acquit. But who among the senators are willing to turn back the momentum of history, and be remembered as the dark angels of the antichrist?

The die has been cast. If the decision to convict Corona is not unanimous as expected, the numbers predict more than 2/3 is hardly a difficult outcome.

Hacienda Luisita has been in the hands of the Cojuangco family, which includes the late former President Corazon Aquino and her son, incumbent President Benigno Aquino III, since the family acquired the property in 1958 through a loan from the Government Service Insurance System and a dollar loan from the Manufacturer’s Trust Company of New York, which was guaranteed by the Central Bank of the Philippines. A condition for the sale of the Hacienda to the Cojuangcos was the transfer of the lands to the tenants or farmers ten years after the loan has matured. Meaning, the lands have to be transferred to the farmers by 1967. Of course, this never happened because the Cojuangcos were a powerful political clan and they were able to thwart any attempts to transfer ownership to the farmers.

When Corazon Aquino became president of the Philippines, the Hacienda was exempted from land reform, the centrepiece of her administration. The property was placed under a stock distribution agreement between the landowners and farm workers in compliance with the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The stock distribution option (SDO) was a scheme under the CARP that was first implemented during the administration of President Cory Aquino.

Following a year of turbulent protests where several striking workers of the Hacienda were killed and dozens of others wounded, the Department of Agrarian Reform cancelled the stock distribution agreement on the ground that it had failed to improve the lives of more than 5,000 farmer beneficiaries. In May 2006, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council junked the motion of the Hacienda management to reconsider the revocation of the SDO. The Cojuangcos, however, were successful in obtaining a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court which effectively blocked the revocation of the SDO. On November 22, 2011, the Supreme Court finally ordered the redistribution of the Hacienda to the farmers holding that the farmers will not benefit from the distribution of shares of stock.

What can happen after the Senate renders its judgment against Corona?

Chief Justice Corona would be replaced by someone more hospitable to the Aquino government. If that person is one of the incumbent justices, a vacancy occurs which Noynoy Aquino will fill up with another justice of his own choice. The other justices appointed by former President Arroyo would have been successfully chastened by the impeachment process, emboldening Noynoy to do anything he wishes without opposition. Now, wouldn’t that be the most opportune time to reverse the Supreme Court decision on the redistribution of the Hacienda to the farmers?

Hacienda Luisita, which is as large as the total land area of the cities of Pasig and Makati combined, is simply too big and of too sentimental value for the Cojuangco family to lose. The family held on to the Hacienda lands through eight presidential turnovers. Losing the Hacienda on the watch of one of their very own would be most hard to swallow.

The Hacienda the Cojuangcos dearly love is one of the last remnants of colonialism in the Philippines despite efforts by the government to implement land reform. One could picture Noynoy Aquino after retiring from the presidency galloping on a horse through the sunset while he surveys the vast landscape of his family estate. Or imagine Noynoy driving his Porsche over the long stretch of the national highway built on a large swath of Hacienda land by government money, as he is fond of doing in order to unwind. Or on a lazy Saturday afternoon, Noynoy could just drive to the range for practice shooting.

The lifestyle of the very rich and famous scion of the Cojuangco family—why would Noynoy be a fool to give the Hacienda up?

Much ado about nothing

Simply browsing over the flaws of the impeachment complaints against the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court tells that even if the trial goes the full distance before the Senate, this charade is just as much ado about nothing. After all, public opinion, upon which the present Aquino government rests its case, will hardly sway those senators to render judgment against Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III. Photo courtesy of AP. Click
link to view "Noynoy Aquino Slaps Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kt9i1TWFeQ&feature=related during  First
Criminal Justice Summit.

Truth be told, the public is really angry at former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and for good reason. If only the Filipino people would be allowed to lay their hands on Mrs. Arroyo, she could be taken out instantly as what the Libyan protesters did to their former despotic ruler, Muammar Gadaffi. The death of Gadaffi in the hands of the Libyan rebels and protesters seems to have set the new standard for punishment of crimes against the people.

Arroyo’s trial should therefore proceed without delay; after all, she’s also entitled to a speedy trial. The trial of Chief Justice Corona is a mere distraction, which takes away the attention on Arroyo. Whether this is by design will prove once again that Philippine politics is all but a big spectacle, a public entertainment of self-obsessed individuals fighting for the limelight. Much like what one journalist described the Bill Clinton impeachment as “a vast landscape painting of life as it truly is in Washington at the turn of the millennium, a Guernica of overfed egos.''

Perhaps this is why many of us have become cynical about change. Two years in his presidency, Noynoy Aquino has not effectively delivered on his election promise to bring to justice those who have enriched themselves through graft and corruption. Now that the government has the big Kahuna in custody, the Aquino government seems more interested in destroying Chief Justice Corona’s reputation and the independence of the judiciary. What motivate the President are his allegations of perceived bias by the Chief Justice in the court’s decisions that favoured former President Arroyo.

But Noynoy has already started packing up the Supreme Court with his own appointees, the latest being his former colleague in a security agency whom he has just elevated to the position of Associate Justice in the Supreme Court. If he were successful in getting rid of Corona, he would surely appoint a new Chief Justice who will follow his whims and caprices. Ultimately, what Noynoy Aquino wants is an obedient judiciary that rubber stamps whatever decisions he makes.

Philippine Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. Photo courtesy of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer. Click link to view "Chief Justice Corona fights back
versus Noynoy Aquino," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-nCnqGlPz8

One columnist in a Philippine daily newspaper even wrote that the resignation of Corona and the justices appointed by Arroyo Justices would restore the credibility of the Supreme Court. Would he have the same audacity to recommend that justices of the United States’ Supreme Court do the same thing? This columnist practises law in San Francisco and it is highly doubtful if he would propose that some American conservative justices also resign for gradually eroding women’s rights earned from the Roe vs. Wade decision, or entrenching the right of the individual citizen to own guns over the need to fight criminality, or the right to political speech of private corporations. He would be the laughing stock of the American Bar.

A friend wrote me an email a while ago saying that Chief Justice Corona has been guilty of obstruction of justice by showing his bias in favour of Gloria Arroyo in decisions made by the court. He says that Corona has abused the law in order to serve his benefactor Mrs. Arroyo who appointed him as Chief Justice.

While there could be some kernel of truth in allegations that justices could be guilty of bias, this will not stand as a valid argument for impeachment. The truth is, justices show their loyalty to their appointing power. In fact, the appointing power ensures that the justices they appoint would be loyal to their views and interests, whether legitimate or not.

A Democrat U.S. President will appoint justices to the Supreme Court those who are likely to uphold and support his or her views of the political world. Thus, conservative justices appointed to the court usually would side with decisions that favour private corporations, big business and the Republican Party.

Former president Gloria Arroyo appointed justices who would toe her line. The same thing goes for President Aquino’s appointees. Sooner or before his term is over, Noynoy Aquino would be able to pack the Supreme Court with his own flock of obeisant justices. Will Congress impeach an Aquino-appointed chief justice for partiality? Will the public rise against Aquino for subverting the ends of justice?

As a young man who witnessed the destruction of our democratic institutions during the martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos, I saw how the Supreme Court and Congress bowed to the wishes of the dictator. Noynoy Aquino is trying to accomplish the same thing: to exact blind obedience from the legislative and judicial branches of government. No wonder that the veteran journalist Amando Doronilla has suggested that the Aquino government is being undemocratic.

What seems disturbing is how the Philippine media is distorting the truth about the Aquino government. Let Noynoy Aquino prosecute Gloria Arroyo for graft and corruption. The Aquino the government, however, has downgraded the charges of economic plunder for lack of evidence. This is an election promise he made during the election. He now has the full power of government to bring Arroyo to justice, and he should be commended for fulfilling his promise.

In the meantime, how about Aquino’s other equally important promises to revive the country’s faltering economy, including creating jobs and reducing poverty? Is the Aquino government only interested in instilling his platform of daang matuwid (the right path)? Is this the single purpose of the Aquino government?

Two years in his presidency, Noynoy Aquino’s singular devotion to his crusade against corruption has not yielded much progress. The imprisonment of Arroyo, the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona, and a possible revamp of the Supreme Court, will not be sufficient to declare an Aquino victory, for all these events may even outlive his administration.

Just last October 2011, President Noynoy Aquino signed two major land lease agreements with China and Japan. China would lease from the Philippines 1.2 million hectares of Philippine land for agricultural production, and Japanese corporations, one million hectares for bio-fuel production.

On her part, former President Gloria Arroyo brokered during her term agricultural land investment deals covering 1.37 million hectares for the production of agro-fuel stock, such as coconut, jathropa and oil palm for bio-diesel, and sugar, sweet sorghum, cassava, and molasses for bio-ethanol.

Conversion of farmlands for residential, commercial and other industrial purposes continues unabated. Leasing of Philippine agricultural lands to foreign governments and corporations is tantamount to an act of land grabbing and it leaves Filipino farmers nothing. Those who happen to live on these lands are not given the opportunity to even have a say on the appropriation of their lands.

How come the Philippine media has not criticized President Noynoy Aquino for continuing to lease lands to foreign governments and corporations to meet their agro-fuel demands and production of high-value cash crops for export? Is it because this may link the President with the current travails of the Hacienda Luisita?

It should be recalled that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Corona has ruled in favour of redistribution of the Hacienda Luisita to the farmers. Yet, nothing much has happened in implementing the court’s decision. Could this decision be a casualty of the impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Corona, under whose watch this decision was made?

If veteran journalist Amando Doronilla was right in characterizing the present Aquino government as “vindictive,” the farmers of Hacienda Luisita should postpone any celebration of their victory. Wait and see what happens after the impeachment of Corona.