predecessor’s and frustrated by her loyalists in the Supreme Court, succeeded in
removing the chief justice by mobilizing public outrage in an impeachment trial.
Arroyo was president for ten years, the first four to complete Estrada’s
unfinished term ( 2001 – 4 ) and thereafter a fresh six-year term ( 2004 – 10 ). Perennially
embroiled in corruption scandals, besieged by coup and impeachment threats, and
saddled with her own legitimacy deficit, she relied on the manipulation of
constitutional powers to protect herself from popular outrage.
That process now seems to have been reversed with the election of Benigno
Aquinoiii– son of Philippine democracy icon Corazon Aquino – as president.
Aquino has relied on the political branch to trump the impunity that has found
refuge in the courts through Arroyo’s deft manipulation of legal technicality.
Emblematic of this shift is the impeachment by the Philippine Congress of no
less than Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona. In December 2011 , the
Philippine Congress adopted the Articles of Impeachment indicting the chief
justice.
85
In May 2012 , after a full trial, the Philippine Senate found him guilty of
one of the offenses charged, namely nondisclosure of assets in the required annual
declaration. The Senate removed him from office, the first time in Philippine
history that a public officer was unseated via the process of impeachment.
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This represents a tectonic shift in the constitutional structuring of Philippine
governance. It is best understood in the context of two developments. The first is
legal– the rise of impeachment as a mode of enforcing public accountability.
The second ispolitical– how a new president, seeing how corruption suspects used
the judiciary to block his anticorruption campaign, unleashed the political branch
of government against the judiciary’s highest officer.
Impeachment as a constitutional device for public accountability
For a long while already, the impeachment power had stood in the books but
remained wholly untested.^87 It was used for the first time in the year 2000 against
President Joseph Estrada, but the trial was stopped midstream. He was ousted by
public protest and a civil society–big business–military conspiracy that installed
President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo. The next several episodes of impeachment all
failed on a legalistic ground carried out through the expansive use of judicial
review: in 2003 against Chief Justice Hilario Davide for the disputed oath-taking
(^85) House of Representatives, Verified Complaint for Impeachment (Articles of Impeach-
ment) (December 12 , 2011 ); see alsoChief Justice Renato C. Coronav.Senate of the
Philippines sitting as an Impeachment Court, G.R. No 200242 (July 17 , 2012 ) (hereinafter
CJ Coronav.Senate).
(^86) Judgment,In re: Impeachment Trial of Honorable Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, Judg-
ment, Senate of the Philippines, Case No 002 - 2011 (May 29 , 2012 ).
(^87) 1935 Const. Art.ix(Impeachment); 1973 Art.xiii(Accountability of Public Officers) at
§§ 2 – 4.