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Beyond Coronas Impeachment: Democracy, Accountability and Socialism

The one-eyed rules in the land of the blind. - Padre Damaso in Jose Rizals Noli Me Tangere Let a hundred flowers bloom. Let a hundred schools of thought contend. - Asian socialist leader Mao Tse Tung So, the Philippine president and his men are congratulating themselves for a job well done. Citizens from all walks of life fed up with this particular case of corruption expect a guilty verdict that would oust the Philippine chief justice from his post. Just as everyone thinks everythings gonna be alright, some things need to be emphasized, lest we forget... Democracy The impeachment complaint against Philippine Chief Justice Renato Corona was railroaded (happily, most Filipinos think). Lest we forget, most congressmen and congresswomen who endorsed the complaint never read the

2 of 5 whole complaint before signing and endorsing it. They relied on a summarized version of the complaint delivered via a Power Point presentation. Indeed, the complaint miraculously gathered 188 signatures in just a day! (Yeah, its as if the complaint the paper document itself was like a jedi who has effectively convinced everyone in just a day to be with the good side of The Force). This is a non-problem, most Filipinos say. Nevertheless, the groundwork has been laid for some evil president in cahoots with some evil congressmen and congresswomen in the future to use the same tactics against an imaginary good chief justice or any other impeachable officials. This applies not only to impeachment complaints but also to legislative measures. What the president wants, he gets in just a day! A safety valve has been destroyed, so to speak. A precedent has been made. Accountability Bravo! A man who betrayed public trust by deliberately excluding some of his assets in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) is on the verge of being ousted from his post. Whats next then? Expect business as usual. This is all for show. Whats the proof that this is just all for show? Remember the day congressmen and congresswomen who instantly endorsed and signed the impeachment complaint started clamoring for Chief Justice Corona to sign a waiver that will allow them to scrutinize all his bank accounts? Initially, Chief Justice Corona agreed to sign the waiver on one condition: 188 congressmen and congresswomen who endorsed the complaint against him, and Senator Franklin Drilon (the presidents Liberal partymate and fellow anticorruption crusader) should sign a similar waiver too. Instead of accepting Coronas challenge, most of the 188 congressmen and congresswomen just ignored the issue as in, they said nothing. Meanwhile, a few talkative members of the pro-impeachment bloc defended their refusal to sign a waiver, claiming that Coronas the only one on trial here. Meanwhile, Senator Drilon, chickened out, as some netizens commented, outrightly rejecting Coronas dare. As of this writing, only three members of Congress have signed the waiver.

3 of 5 Finally, Corona withdrew the challenge! He submitted a waiver that covers all of his bank accounts. And wonder of wonders, all of a sudden, congressmen and congresswomen in the pro-impeachment bloc are united in saying that theyre no longer interested to look into Coronas bank accounts. Actually, they would want to wipe out the waiver issue in the national consciousness. Theoretically, there are hundreds of Coronas out there: public officials who are afraid to disclose everything that they have (yes, they rightly think that being so rich in a very poor country is somewhat wrong). Its just that theyre yet to be caught. And since the waiver issue is fast fading in the peoples consciousness, theres very little chance that we would see more of them caught and punished. Do remember that even if all sorts of waivers are signed, theres no guarantee that we can scrutinize their bank accounts. Banks are banks. They can circumvent rules. They can wipe out the paper trail. They can instantly (and temporarily) make some bank accounts disappear with the click of an electronic mouse. Thats the wonder of modern banking. Do remember that existing details from Coronas bank accounts were from the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council. Can we pressure the said agency to release all bank account details of all top Philippine officials, in the name of transparency and the national interest? Can any Juan or Juana common folks with no political clout and connections whatsoever demand a public disclosure of all bank account details of the said officials? We cant but we should! Thats the only way total and genuine accountability would become possible. In fact, we should clamor for the online posting of all SALNs and full bank account details of top government officials at the very least. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, banks would always be banks and they were never there for the sake of transparency. Moreover, government officials are so allergic to public scrutiny. Indeed, they think its very dangerous. For example, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario (coincidentally the richest member in the cabinet of President Simeon Benigno Noynoy Cojuangco Aquino III where only the Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro, F.S.C, is the only non-millionaire) says there are some risks in terms of publishing of SALNs that necessarily put an officials

4 of 5 family at risk, which is totally unnecessary. Its very mind-boggling why rich people are so afraid of public scrutiny. Furthermore, do ask why Coronas bank account details were gleefully shared and publicized by the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council via the Office of the Ombudsman while bank account details of other officials are not even mentioned? Banks are banks and neoliberal governments are neoliberal governments. They dont care about transparency and the rule of law. Theyre just there to make sure that elite rule will be here for the next hundred years at the very least, with some seasonal crucifixions to satisfy the peoples clamor for democracy and accountability. If we want total and genuine accountability, we should all clamor for more investigations, more crucifixions if necessary. We need to scrutinize behest loans (loans of some lucky rich individuals which are magically wiped out with the authorization of the Central Bank) and sovereign guarantees on private loans (through sovereign guarantees, the government would pay for the private loans if the private entities failed to pay). We need to demand an investigation on contractualization of workers (which is by the way unconstitutional) even as corporations reap record-high profits. These crimes are far bigger than that of Coronas multimillion scandal. If we stop with Coronas impeachment, nothing will ever change in this country. Socialism As mentioned above, banks are banks. Their operations are not entirely transparent. We dont even know where theyre getting money and how do they pay (if they do pay) the source of all the money. Meanwhile, they also accept deposits from us common folks. They use our money with their original capital/money from the source (of course thats the government, and not all economists would confirm this) to invest on a myriad of businesses. Theyre supposed to function profitably but when they fail, when they become bankrupt and unbelievably cashless, they just have to cry Help! and governments would come to their rescue with public money! That happened in the United States, in

5 of 5 Greece and in Spain (hence the three countries are still in a deep crisis). That didnt happen in Iceland (hence Iceland has now recovered from the crisis). In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels included the centralization of credit into the hands of the State (putting banks under public control, the way cooperatives are) as one of the sweeping reforms necessary to make socialism work. Socialism is of course the opposite of capitalism. Capitalism is the ideological framework that produced Chief Justice Corona. Capitalism is the economic system that emphasizes the deregulation of banks so that more and more Coronas could have a secret stash somewhere, somehow. Capitalism is the reason why we dont control the banks despite the fact that their cash comes from our government (which we fund through taxes). To destroy capitalism, we ought to replace it with socialism. Unfortunately for us, our State, our government cannot become socialist. It is a State, a government of elite political dynasties. Hence, our State, our government wont put banks under public control. Hence, the likes of Coronas in cahoots with banks will still live happily ever after... What do we do now? An increasing number of citizens worldwide are beginning to think that only a revolution can save us from hopelessness. But in the Philippines, non-revolutionaries (some say, future revolutionaries) ought to begin with campaigning for the passage of the Anti-Dynasty Bill in Congress which has been in the archives gathering dust for 10 years now. Its an uphill battle so uphill that some have chosen to go to the mountains instead to try other alternatives. God bless them good men and women! - D.M.M. San Juan