THE stakes on the results of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona’s impeachment trial continue to get higher. This developed as the leader of a large Filipino Muslim group called on the Senate to “demonstrate its commitment” to help President Benigno Aquino III in cleaning up the country’s judicial branch of government.

Shariff Ibrahim Albani, president of the Anak Sug Association and Unity for Revival Foundation (ASA-URF), said Filipino Muslims “have a huge stake” in the result of the impeachment trial, contrary to views of some quarters.

Albani said ASA-URF has over 400,000 members spread out in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan and the Zamboanga Peninsula,

“We believe that we Muslim Filipinos as well as our Christian and indigenous brothers in the Southern Philippines, as citizens of this country, have a huge stake in the impeachment trial. The Shari’ah Law or Muslim Law falls under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and, hence, it is the duty of every Muslim to support all undertakings to cleanse the SC from immorality and in upholding decency,” Albani said. “We maintain that the chief justice of the Supreme Court must be clean and must not have any secrets to hide.  Ang Chief Justice, dapat malinis, walang tinatago, walang nililihim.”

His statement came on the heels of the support also given to the process by the country’s cooperative sector comprising some 2 million members and represented by the partylist Coop-NATCCO, headed by Rene Buenviaje.

Buenviaje, in a separate statement, said the continuing revelations in the Senate on CJ Corona’s “hidden” bank accounts have cast a “pall of suspicion” in the public’s mind on his fitness to continue presiding over the country’s highest tribunal.

Local leaders headed by Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Ray “LRay” Villafuerte also expressed support to the trial.

This developed even as the influential Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), which supported Pres. Aquino’s bid for the presidency in the 2010 elections, announced that it would be mobilizing its members nationwide for a huge assembly at the end of the month purportedly in support of Corona.

Corona’s lead counsel, former Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary  Serafin Cuevas, is a member of the religious group.

Despite this, those supporting the continuation of the trial maintain that the leader of the country’s judicial branch should be beyond suspicion.

“At the end of the impeachment trial,” Albani said, “we expect the impeachment court to answer a simple question: Can we still trust Chief Justice Corona after discovering he is hiding the truth? Does Corona still deserve to be Chief Justice?”