THE impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona at the Senate continues to draw grassroots support including from the over two million members of the country’s cooperative sector.

Rene Buenviaje, president of the partylist ‘Coop NATCCO,’ in a statement said the continuing revelations in the Senate on the chief  justice’s “hidden” bank accounts have cast a pall of suspicion in the public’s mind as to his continuing fitness to continue to preside over the affairs of the country’s highest tribunal.

“Paano pa ba natin mapagkakatiwalaan ang isang taong may nililihim?  Ang chief justice, dapat malinis, walang tinatago, walang nililihim,” Buenviaje said.

Coop-NATCCO is a sectoral group comprising some 700 cooperatives in the country and boast of around two million members.

The group’s avowal of support for the ongoing impeachment trial of Corona comes after local government unit  leaders headed by Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Ray ‘LRay’ Villafuerte last week openly backed the Corona ouster process.

Speaking on behalf of other Bicolano leaders, Villafuerte had said the impeachment trial should proceed as he shunned the effort of the chief justice to have it stopped by way of a petition for an injunction before the Supreme Court.

The court, for its part, has not yet decided on the issue although at least five other similar petitions were also pending before the chamber filed by groups and individuals seen as “sympathizing” with their beleaguered chief and colleague.

Buenviaje pressed home the call for Corona to voluntarily reveal his bank accounts after it was established at last week’s trial that he closed several bank accounts at the Philippine Savings Bank on the day that 188 members of Congress voted to impeach him last December 12, 2011.

The cooperative sector’s statement of support for the trial also comes on the heels of reports that the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) would be holding a huge rally at the end of the month in support of Corona.

“Hindi sapat na mag-resign lamang ang isang lider na gumawa ng hindi tama...dapat siyang sampahan ng kaso, usigin at maparusahan.  Kung hindi, para na ring pinalusot ang lider na nagkasala,” Buenviaje said further.