Soldier's Pen
By BGen. Alexander Cabales (Ret.)
Corona case:
Model for good governance
Kumander Dante "cried like a baby". This was the revelation of Mario Miclat in
his book "The Secrets of the 18 Mansions". Kumander Dante, Bernabe Buscayno in real
life, was the erstwhile leader of the New People's Army (NPA) before he was
given amnesty by the Cory Aquino Administration sometime in 1986. This revolutionary peasant was a member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) together
with author Miclat under the leadership of Jose Maria (Joma) Sison who now
lives in the Netherlands.
This private experience of the author regarding Buscayno's
emotional episode showed the human weaknesses of people in the highest echelons
of a well organized, strongly motivated, and idealistic group. I am not however, just referring to
Buscayno's show of his emotions when he "cried like a baby" but more
particularly to the circumstances surrounding the incident. Miclat narrates that the incident happened
when he and Buscayno witnessed a quarrel between Joma Sison and his wife in a
most unlikely situation and unexpected of the character of the very refined Mrs.
Sison. Accordingly, the trio had a meeting
when Sison's wife entered and in a fit of anger pounded hard on the back of
Sison. She allegedly learned that
another woman just gave birth to Sison’s child.
So why did Kumander Dante "cry like a baby"? Probably, he was stricken with great guilt
and remorse for what he had done in the past. Realizing the fact of Sison's
grave violation of party policies, he cried and exclaimed, "… and to think
that we have killed so many of our dedicated and good comrades in the past even
for minor cases and sometimes unconfirmed acts of sexual opportunism!"
This glimpse of an inside story in the lives of
"idealistic" people brings to mind the political situation unfolding
in our country today especially as an aftermath of the impeachment of former
Chief Justice Renato Corona. We all know
that this is part of the president's program to run after grafters in
government in his so called Matuwid na Daan policy.
We cannot question the wisdom of the Senate Impeachment Court
for declaring the former Chief Justice guilty.
We could not question the other wisdom of the dissenting opinions of
Senators Merriam Defensor Santiago, Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. We
can also commend the manner in which Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile handled
the proceedings. He tread a very fine line that spelled the difference between
a political and a judicial exercise. Many would say that if the proceedings
were treated as a purely judicial exercise former CJ Corona would have been
exonerated. But, it was treated as a political forum .
The impeachment of former CJ Corona is bound to set very
dangerous precedents which may make or unmake our honest president. We have seen that there was nothing in that
exercise that has proven former CJ Corona guilty of graft and that he stole from
government, or that he indulged in anomalous or illegal personal or business
transactions. All that the prosecution
has proven was that he did not declare his real SALN and had betrayed public
trust. For some members of the
prosecution panel and sadly, for some Senator-Lawyers to insist that Corona was
corrupt was ‘unlawyerly’.
If Corona betrayed public trust simply because he did not
correctly declare his true SALN, would that policy also apply to the President,
Vice President, the Senate President or the Speaker of the House? Would it also apply to Corona's successor as
the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who would obviously be P Noy's
man? Would the latter undergo the same
close scrutiny as was done to Corona?
Would it also apply to all other top government officials who by virtue
of their positions and responsibilities also require public trust? Let us hope that it would.
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