Never ever come to court with dirty hands!

A small, but front page report from The Philippine Star last Wednesday was quite a huge revelation which, as Star reporter Michael Punongbayan wrote, “Despite accusations of graft against its Chief, the Supreme Court (SC) had no serious fund irregularities in 2010, according to a Commission on Audit (COA) report released yesterday.” I should say that round one goes in favor of Chief Justice Renato Corona even before the boxing has started.          

 But before we could even go to round two or start the impeachment trial, another embarrassing, albeit more serious situation has developed when Ms. Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) issued a lengthy expose’ that none of CJ Corona’s accusers in the House of Representatives from the period year 2006 to December 2011 have disclosed their Statements of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). CJ Corona should say, “Touché” to his accusers.

 This is exactly what we wrote a couple of weeks ago, about what our Lord Jesus Christ said when the Jews were about to stone a woman caught in adultery … and the Lord merely wrote on the ground and said, “Those of you who have no sin… let him cast the first stone.” The 11-member panel led by Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas who will prosecute the impeachment complaint in Congress did not only cast the first stone, they went overboard violating the Senate “Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials” for disclosing evidence against CJ Corona, to which the Senators warned the congressmen to shut up or they’ll throw the impeachment trial before it starts!

 But they don’t want to stop simply because these congressmen believe that by applying public pressure and destroying his public persona, CJ Corona might just resign, which they really want him to do to in order to spare them from proving those flimsy allegations, which at this point is already full of holes.

 Now that the cat is out of the bag… in the spirit of fairness, equality and justice, the Filipino people must demand from Congress that they too must come clean on the very allegations they have smeared the Chief Justice. Every single congressman belonging to the 188 who signed that impeachment complaint without reading it ought to have their Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) published otherwise they just might be suspected of corruption.

 One of the first legal dictums that I learned in the USC College of Law was, “He who comes to court must come with clean hands.” This dictum was recently used in a Supreme Court Ruling on a case of Osmeña vs. Osmeña (G.R. No.171711) promulgated on Jan. 26, 2010 and penned no less than Associate Justice Renato Corona. There’s no need to go to details of this case.

 Let me quote Wikipedia on this Dirty Hands Doctrine… “It is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy on account of the fact that the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with respect to the subject of the complaint that is with “unclean hands.” The defendant has the burden of proof to show the plaintiff is not acting in good faith. The doctrine is often stated as “those seeking equity must do equity” or “equity must come with clean hands.”

 With the news from the COA that there were no irregularities in the Supreme Court Audit plus the PCIJ expose that the members of Congress have failed to produce their SALNs, the question begging for an answer is, “Why is the Filipino people still being given a ringside seat to this political circus in the Senate?” God spare us from this madness!

 Allow me to quote Ms. Mangahas when she wrote, “If one’s failure to disclose SALNs is now an impeachable offense, then a long list of officials should also now be expunged from public office, including Ombudsman Carpio-Morales and by their own assertion, even 185 of the 188 members of the 15th Congress who filed the impeachment complaint against Corona but have not disclosed copies of their own SALNs.

 Thus far, only two of the 282 members of the 15th Congress have actually disclosed copies of their 2010 SALN upon request: Neither is among the 188 signatories to the impeachment complaint that the House had submitted to the Senate Impeachment court.” That report also revealed the ANAD Party-List Rep. Pastor M. Alcover, Jr. gave his SALNs last July 2010.

 The Constitution clearly states that disclosure of the real, detailed SALNs of all public officials, must be obtained within 10 working days after these have been filed within the yearly April 30 deadline. In contrast, PCIJ lauded the Senate for SALNs compliance, while as far as the House of Representatives is concerned, last Dec.19, 2011, PCIJ filed its sixth letter request from Rep. Niel Tupas and the PCIJ got nothing! I rest my case! Pit Senyor!

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