Gloria et Santa

By Rolo B. Cena
Hushed Poppies
Dumaguete Star Informer
4 December 2011

It has finally arrived. And they have finally arrived at one point. Adding fuel to the fire, the Tribunal has finally arrived at a unanimous verdict. Yes, accountability and reckoning have come, at least for one little girl and one big man. This time, accountability and reckoning have gotten into everybody’s nerves, not just into one’s spine.

After the exchange of speculative hullabaloos from both camps, the government, through the court, has finally ordered the hospital arrest of former President now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. To my own understanding, this is more fitting for a former leader sans the conviction, at least to save the face not just of the President but of the Filipinos as well from external humiliation.

Juxtaposed with Estrada’s plunder case, Arroyo’s shouldn’t be any different. Upon commission, whether in millions or in hundreds of pesos, plunder is plunder and shouldn’t be defined as Estrada or Arroyo plunder. The only difference I know of, and this has already taken precedence over presumption of innocence, is the twist and turns called Corona and Luisita.

First off, Chief Justice Renato Corona is a midnight appointee of Gloria along with the host of justices less three. He was her former legal adviser.

In their minds, it was Chief Justice Corona and his “utang na loob” who declared Aquino’s Truth Commission unconstitutional; it was Chief Justice Corona and his “utang na loob” who issued the TRO against the travel ban of Arroyo. Unwittingly though, it was Chief Justice Corona and his magistrates of the High Tribunal who did all those in the absence “utang na loob.” It was only Aquino and his allies who are saying that it was “utang na loob” that did it all, an allegation that undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court as a democratic institution sans the insults on the credibility of the magistrates composing it, whether appointees of Arroyo or Aquino.

If “utang na loob” dictates those magistrates, the three justices appointed by Aquino would have dissented, thus, leaving the decision on the Hacienda Luisita case questionable. Conclusively, the three therefore did not intend to repay Aquino in this respect.

Secondly, the complexity of the decision of the High Tribunal against Hacienda Luisita, the hacienda of Aquino’s family added fuel to the fire.

In 1958, Pres. Aquino’s maternal grandfather Jose Cojuangco acquired what is now known as Hacienda Luisita from Spanish firm Tabacalera through a loan from the Government Service Insurance System and the Central Bank of the Philippines. The condition of the loans was that the hacienda’s agricultural lands would be sold to its tenants at “reasonable” costs.

And the Cojuangco’s did not comply and continued to fail compliance of such condition. During the time of Cory, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was enacted and the Hacienda subjected to comply with distributing the lands to its tenant-farmers. “Stock certificates” were distributed, instead.

In November 2004, seven farm workers drew their ire at the picket fence that cost their lives and seven others were murdered one after the other by unknown assassins. Due to this, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accelerated its investigation over a complaint by the hacienda union that the stock distribution scheme was a pretense.

In December 2005, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council created in 1987 by Cory Administration, made up of 15 Cabinet members and chaired by President Arroyo, ordered the fraudulent land reform ended, and to distribute the land to the farmer-workers. The clans legally contested.

Finally last month, the High Tribunal upheld the 2005 decision of the Court and not only ordered the Cojuangcos to immediately distribute 4,915 hectares to the haciendas’ farmer-workers. It also ordered them to pay the farmer-workers P1.33 billion, the proceeds of the sale of hacienda lands that became the industrial and business parks. Agrarian reform laws peg “just compensation” at 1989 levels, or just about P200 million.

The Court’s decision could mean the Cojuangco-Aquino clans’ bankruptcy.

Now it makes sense why they hate Chief Justice Renato Corona so much, why they’re asking him to inhibit from Arroyo’s cases. Arguably though, Gloria’s critics should also believe and understand that in doing so, all the three appointees of Aquino should also inhibit. This leaves the High Tribunal with three justices to squabble on the cases against Arroyo.

At this point, Gloria should stop acting like a little girl wanting for more; P-Noy should stop acting like superman dominating more and more. But they can do one thing: make a wish list this Christmas and post it in a chimney wall.

After all, even justices believe that Santa exists!