An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House considers it to be at any given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense  two-thirds of the other body (the Senate) considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office. – Former US President Gerald Ford

“In Rome, salt used to be like gas and oil are now  -- expensive. People used to get paid in salt. So when someone is ‘worth his salt’, he's a good guy, hard worker, or worth the salt they paid him with,” according to a Yahoo entry.

That’s one measure of character for a private citizen.

But what if the person is a public official?

Then we say this: “Is the guy worth his SALN?”

The defense of impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona has been making light of the “undervaluations” and “mis-declarations” that had allegedly been committed by Corona in his statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth. Clearly, the tack is to impress upon the people and the senator-judges that his sins do not constitute an impeachable offense, according to legal analysts.

This became apparent, they said,  on day 10 of the trial when retired SC justice Serafin Cuevas argued that while the CJ may have been remiss in including the acquisition costs and fair market value of his properties in his SALNs, there were remedies provided by law to government officials and workers in correcting their SALNs. Fine.

Except for the fact that the CJ is no ordinary government official as he lords it over the Judiciary and is, in fact, the authority tasked to review the SALNs of justices and judges to ensure full compliance not only with the filing of SALNs but also in the filing of “truthful” SALNs.

After all, legal experts said, those in government swear on the truthfulness of their SALNs; thus, it should be  no small thing really for someone as highly perched as the CJ. As the guardian of the truthfulness of the SALNs in the Judiciary, he is doubly liable when caught fudging his own SALNs.

To lie with one’s SALN is to lie to the people, and for the head of the Judicary, it is something that makes untenable his staying at his post a minute longer.

As House prosecutor Sonny Angara pointed out, lying with one’s SALNs amounts to betrayal of public trust, one of several grounds for  which a high government official may be impeached under the Constitution.

At one point, Cuevas was left with no choice but to acknowledge that the CJ  was not fully compliant with Civil Service Commission regulations on SALNs by only jotting down the zonal valuation of his properties and not their acquisotion price and fair market value. Again, Cuevas’ flimsy excuse for his client was that, anyway, the SALNs can be rectified like it was a just an honest mistake.

But from where Ped Xing sits, that cannot be so. How can it be when the CJ stated in his SALN that the Bellagio penthouse he bought for P14.5 million at a whopping P10-million discount was only valued at P6.8 million?

How can it be just a mistake when in all of his SALNs from 2003 to 2010, he declared the value of the Burgundy condominium unit in Katipunan, Quezon City which he bought for over P3 million at just over P270,000?

With such serial and documented statistical dishonesty, Cuevas would want us to believe that they were just trivial matters that can be corrected and that they do not amount to something impeachable?

As prosecutor Elpidio Barzaga has noted, lesser officials and even lowly government workers have been removed from office due to less grave offenses. Thus, Barzaga said, the CJ  cannot be treated with a kid glove or just be given a reprimand like what one overbearing senator-judge has suggested.

If he walks, what is  the message that the Senate would invariably send to all? 

Fill in the blank:_____________