Had the act of impeaching Chief Justice Renato Corona been verified and further debated in the committee and plenary instead of the 188 lawmakers inordinately rushing the articles of impeachment to the Senate, the House as a whole would have seen the constitutional defect under which the accused is being removed from office.

There is no excuse here for the breach because all members of the House took a solemn oath and affirmation to support and protect the Constitution and therefore it is assumed that they knew in advance that the impeachment of Mr. Corona begins and ends with the Constitution.

There is also no doubt that if the articles of impeachment were nominally voted upon in the plenary, majority of the members of the House would have seen the wisdom of just maintaining the status quo and amend the Constitution to provide a safeguard against a dangerous judicial vacuum and other infirmities before proceeding to impeach  the Chief Justice.

The problem is that the lawmakers who signed the articles of impeachment did not resolve the doubt against themselves to make sure that the Constitution was not compromised; rather, they resolved the doubt against the Chief Justice whose innocence, until proven otherwise by due process, is explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.

Unless, of course, they want to admit that they were ignorant of the Constitution, that they did it blindly in support of President Aquino III’s hatred and vengeance against Chief Justice Corona and that they simply succumbed to the promises of patronage and party blandishments.

Seriously compounding the problem is the unconscionable actuations of some members of the prosecution and the Ruling Party who have taken the law into their hands, subjecting Mr. Corona to prejudgment of guilt and to character assassination. Worse, his family were not even spared.

Obviously, they were trying to pressure him to resign without realizing that he is only incidental to the problem. The problem is the seriously flawed Constitution hastily framed during the time of President Corazon Aquino and now inherited by her son, President Benigno Aquino III, who is undeniably obsessed in trying to remove Mr. Corona.

Supposed, for the sake of argument, Chief Justice Corona resigns, dies, is removed by the Senator-judges or is incapacitated, how will he be replaced without first convening the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the body explicitly mandated by the Constitution (Sections 8 and 9, Article VIII) to nominate to the President his successor?

As it is, the JBC cannot convene and nominate by itself to the President a successor in the absence of the Chief Justice as ex officio Chairman of the Council. The Council has eight members and it has no vice chairman or deputy chairman to act if the chairman is gone. This is the defect in the Constitution and the only way to correct it is to amend it.

Neither the President nor the Supreme Court justices can appoint from among its 14 remaining members an acting Chief Justice because it is only the JBC that can do that as ordained by the Constitution.

Anyone violating this JBC provision is culpably infringing the Constitution.

The 1935 and 1973 Constitutions have no JBC and the President can freely fill up vacant positions in the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice. The 1935 Constitution has a Commission on Appointment to confirm the President’s appointee or appointees; there is none in the 1973 Constitution.

When the EDSA People Power uprising swept to power Corazon Cojuangco Aquino in 1986, she invoked the powers of a rebel government, abolished the 1973 Constitution, scrapped the Batasan Pambansa (Congress), the Supreme Court, local government units, and the civil and military services.

And to provide her government with democratic legitimacy because of tremendous public outcry, she arrogated power unto herself by hand-picking 48 men and women, including prelates and suspected communists, and hastily framed her own Constitution, the substance and wordings of which, due mostly to the hatred of Marcos and accommodations of the diverse political, social, and economic interests of the framers, became the longest in Philippine history and probably in the world.

It had 39,000 words and punctuation marks, ran 58 pages, and was four times longer than the brief but all-embracing US Constitution that has already been amended 26 times.

The 1935 Philippine Constitution, with 7,828 words and punctuation marks, was finished in nine months; the 1973 Constitution, consisting of 13,671 words and punctuation marks, was deliberated on in a span of two years. The Aquino Constitution was completed in a record time of only four months.

As a result, it had 97 open-ended and ambiguous provisions that were entrusted to Congress to provide the enabling law with equally nebulous phrases: “...as may be provided by law” or “as Congress may provide.”

Worse, most Filipinos, particularly the youth, are still ignorant about the Aquino Constitution.

Why?

Because it failed to explain and educate them about its meaning and implications despite the specific mandate of her Constitution in Section 3, Article XIV, that: “All educational institutions shall include the study of the Constitution as part of the curricula.”

When the Aquino regime campaigned for the ratification of her Constitution in 1987, her propagandists resorted to “glittering generalities” by ascribing her Constitution with some lofty ideals.

Thus, some pro-charter propagandists in that one-sided campaign said that a “yes” vote for the Constitution was a “yes” for democracy, for freedom, for progress, and for stability. What right-thinking person was not for democracy, or freedom, or progress, or stability?

Since many, if not all, of the voters were for these beautiful concepts, they voted “yes” to the Constitution although most of them had not read its provisions.

Recall that Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, President Ramos and the reformist officers in the military led by Senator Gregorio B. Honasan who led the 1986 uprising then strongly opposed the abolition of the 1973 Constitution which was originally done by the 1971 elected constitutional commissioners, considered the country’s best and the brightest. Arillo can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.