Corona was previously a law professor, private law practitioner and member of the Cabinet under former presidents Fidel V. Ramos and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo before being appointed to the high tribunal.
In November, 2011, the Supreme Court, headed by Corona, issued a landmark decision on the Hacienda Luisita case, wherein, under agrarian reform laws, the Court upheld both the distribution of land to the hacienda's farm workers and the revocation of the SDO agreement forged in 1989.[2][3] The Cojuangco group was given a ten-year window to distribute the lands to the farmers as stipulated.[4]
Background
Renato Tereso Antonio Coronado Corona was born on October 15, 1948, at the Lopez Clinic in Santa Ana, Manila, Philippines. He was the son of Juan M. Corona, a lawyer from Tanauan, Batangas, and Eugenia Ongcapin Coronado, a summa cum laude accounting graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, of Santa Cruz, Manila.[1][5] He was married to Cristina Basa Roco. They have three children and six grandchildren.[6]
Education
Corona graduated with gold medal honors from the Ateneo de Manila grade school in 1962 and high school in 1966.
In 1981, he was accepted to the Master of Laws program of the Harvard Law School, where he focused on foreign investment policies and the regulation of corporate and financial institutions. He was conferred the degree LL.M. in 1982. He earned his Doctor of Civil Law degree from the University of Santo Tomas, summa cum laude and was the class valedictorian.[6]
His appointment was criticized by then-presidential candidate Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III, who would have appointed the next chief justice had Corona not been appointed. Aquino erroneously cited the election-period prohibition against presidential appointments that only applies to the Executive branch.[7]
Constitutional Basis for Corona's Appointment
The Provisions of the Philippine Constitution
Article VII of the Philippine Constitution is specifically titled "Executive Department" and thus only applies to the Executive Branch of the government.[8] Article VIII of the Philippine Constitution is titled "Judicial Department."[9] Thus, any prohibition as to appointments to the Judiciary should be found under Article VIII. There is no such prohibition against election-period presidential appointments under Article VIII of the Philippine constitution.
Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court held in de Castro v. JBC that the election-period prohibition against presidential appointments does not apply to appointments to the Supreme Court. "Had the framers intended to extend the prohibition contained in Section 15, Article VII to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court, they could have explicitly done so."[10]
"They would have easily and surely written the prohibition made explicit in Section 15, Article VII as being equally applicable to the appointment of Members of the Supreme Court in Article VIII itself, most likely in Section 4 (1), Article VIII."[11] "That such specification was not done only reveals that the prohibition against the President or Acting President making appointments within two months before the next presidential elections . . . does not refer to the Members of the Supreme Court."[12]
"Section 15, Article VII does not apply as well to all other appointments in the Judiciary."[13] "[T]he non-applicability of Section 15, Article VII to appointments in the Judiciary was confirmed by then Senior Associate Justice Regalado to the JBC itself when it met on March 9, 1998 to discuss the question raised by some sectors about the "constitutionality of xxx appointments" to the Court of Appeals in light of the forthcoming presidential elections. He assured that "on the basis of the (Constitutional) Commission's records, the election ban had no application to appointments to the Court of Appeals."[14]
The Court pointed out that, on the contrary, under the constitutional provisions for the Judicial Department, "Section 4(1) and Section 9, Article VIII, mandate the President to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court within 90 days from the occurrence of the vacancy. . . . Under the Constitution, it is mandatory for the JBC to submit to the President the list of nominees to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court in order to enable the President to appoint one of them within the 90-day period from the occurrence of the vacancy."[15] The President had an "imperative duty under the Constitution to fill up the vacancies created by such inexorable retirements within 90 days from their occurrence."[16]
The Hacienda Luisita Case
Hacienda Luisita is owned by the Cojuangco-Aquinos, the family of then-President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III.
The Hacienda Luisita legal battle and final Supreme Court decision spanned almost fifty years.[17] The Cojuangco-Aquinos refused to honor their legal obligation to distribute the land under the social justice program, as per the terms of the loan that allowed them to take over the Hacienda. On January 22, 1987, during Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's presidency, thousands of farmers marched to Malacañang Palace to demand the distribution of the land. The Palace's violent dispersion of the farmers became known as the Mendiola Massacre. In November 2004, the farmers held a strike against the mass retrenchment of farm workers and to request for higher pay, however they were dispersed by the police by the then Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomás which resulted to the deaths of 7 people, and imprisonment of 133 others, this was known as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre.[18]
On July 5, 2011, the High Court had upheld the decision by the Department of Agrarian Reform and the PARC, revoking a 1989 stock distribution option in lieu of land distribution under the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).[19] But the Court also allowed each of the farmworkers to make a choice, either a piece of farmlot or shares of stocks.[20]
In November, 2011, in a 56-page ruling, all 14 Supreme Court justices, voting en banc, unanimously agreed that the contested land should be distributed by the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to the original 6,296 farmer-beneficiaries pursuant to an order of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council in December 2005.[21] In ordering that the said estate owned by the family of President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III be distributed to the farmers, the Court finally settled the long-standing dispute over the 4,915.75-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.[22] The Court also lifted the temporary restraining order (TRO) the HLI had earlier secured.[23]
Doctoral degree
On December 22, 2011, Marites Dañguilan Vitug of the online site Rappler published an article alleging that the University of Santo Tomas (UST) "may have broken its rules" in granting Corona a doctorate in civil law and qualifying him for honors.
In a statement, the UST Graduate School denied that it broke its rules to favor Corona. UST likewise questioned the objectivity of the article, citing that Vitug has had a run-in with Corona and the Supreme Court.[24] Vitug supported Associate Justice Antonio Carpio's bid for the chief justiceship in her articles in Rogue and Newsbreak.[25][26] The university, founded in 1611 and the oldest university in Asia,[27] added that Corona had enrolled in all of the requisite subjects leading to the doctorate, attended his classes, passed them and delivered a "scholarly treatise" for his dissertation in a public lecture. UST said that since it has been declared by the Commission on Higher Education as an "autonomous higher educational institution (HEI)" it thus enjoys an institutional academic freedom to set its standards of quality and excellence and determine to whom it shall confer appropriate degrees. It added that issues about Corona's residency and academic honor received were moot because these come under the institutional academic freedom of the university.[28]
On December 12, 2011, 188 of the 285 members of the House of Representatives signed an impeachment complaint against Corona.[29] As only a vote of one-third of the entire membership of the House, or 95 signatures, were necessary for the impeachment of Corona under the 1987 Constitution, the complaint was sent to the Senate for trial.[30][29]
Corona's judicial chambers after the impeachment.
Corona said that the case against him was politically motivated as part of President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III's persecution of his perceived political enemies.[31] “This whole sordid affair has all been about politics from beginning to end . . . . It is about Hacienda Luisita: the P10 billion compensation which the President’s family reportedly wants for the land that was simply lent to them by the government; the need to terrorize and instill a chilling effect on the justices of the Supreme Court to be able to bend their decisions in favor of the Malacanang tenant,” Corona said in a speech delivered during the blessing of the Justicia Room of the Ateneo Law School.[31] Corona pointed out that the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Cojuangco Aquinos' Hacienda Luisita case in August 2010, which was after Corona became Chief Justice, and issued their landmark decision, which was adverse to the Cojuangco Aquino family, in November 2011, a month before the impeachment was filed.[32][33] He argued that he was not required to disclose US$2.4 million because foreign deposits are guaranteed secrecy under the Philippine's Foreign Currency Deposits Act (Republic Act No. 6426)[34] and that the peso accounts are co-mingled funds. Corona pointed out events that showed the animosity of Aquino against him. In December, 2011, then-President Benigno Aquino lectured Corona and lambasted the Supreme Court at the First National Criminal Justice Summit hosted by the Department of Justice.[35] After the event, the Supreme Court issued a statement saying that “while it is the prerogative of the President to speak his mind, we find it quite disturbing” especially done at an event that was supposed to foster “cooperation and coordination. . . . It is not at all unusual for the executive branch to disagree with the judicial branch. But what is considerably unusual is for the Chief Executive to look down on members of the judiciary in public . . . and to their faces denounce the court’s independent actions.”[35] Aquino also attacked Corona at the 30th anniversary celebration of the Makati Business Club.[35] In February, 2012, at the 33rd founding anniversary of the province and the commemoration of the 124th birth anniversary of Doña Aurora Aragon-Quezon, Aquino "stepped up his attacks on Corona as Senator Edgardo Angara, one of the judges in Corona’s impeachment trial, sat a few meters away."[36]During the trial, Filipino patriots united to fight for judicial independence and the rule of law. Corona's supporters held daily non-denominational services at the Supreme Court.
Corona's supporters also showed solidarity with him during the trial with signs and by their presence at the Supreme Court.
On May 29, 2012, he was found guilty by the Senate of Article II of the Articles of Impeachment filed against him for his failure to disclose to the public his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth.[37] Twenty out of twenty-three senators voted to convict him. A two-thirds majority, or 16 votes, was necessary to convict and remove Corona from office. Corona responded by declaring that "ugly politics prevailed" and his "conscience is clear." This marked the first time that a high-level Philippine official has been impeached and convicted.
Bill of Attainder
Senator Joker Arroyo, who was also a lawyer,[38] denounced the verdict, "Mr. President, esteemed colleagues, impeachment is a political process, not a political assassination. An impeachment aspires to be a judicial proceeding that makes imperative that it stick to judicial rules. An impeachment must ever uphold the due process that no citizen, high or low, can be denied. That is why we wear judicial robes as you see them, to listen, to ponder, and decide like judges according to law. What started in the House was not an impeachment, for an impeachment is an accusation accompanied by necessary formalities, attended by the appropriate solemnities, flanked by the liberties and guarantees that a genuine grand jury proceeding upholds. . . . The Senate is being asked to remove the chief justice from office all because he submitted an allegedly erroneous SALN. . . . What has happened is the passage of that to which the Senate president once warned—that we were veering close to a bill of attainder. A bill of attainder is a law passed by one house and approved by the other creating an offense where there was none, inventing a crime out of actions, willful or not, that were innocent when they were performed. It is a legislative act of convicting an accused of acts that were not offenses in the very measure by which he is condemned through a vote instead of a trial on the basis of accusations taken as proof. The esteemed Senator ended his statement with "I cannot imagine removing a Chief Justice on account of a SALN. Today, we are one step from violating the constitution and passing a bill of attainder. No one can stop us if we do not stop ourselves. This is not justice – political or legal. This is certainly not law, for sure it is not the law of the constitution. It is only naked power as it was in 1972. I haven't thought that I would see it again so brazenly performed but for what it is worth, I cast my vote. If not for innocence falsely accused, of offenses yet to exist, and if not for the law and the constitution, that we were privileged to restore under Cory Aquino, then because it is dangerous not to do what is right. When soon we stand before the Lord, I vote to acquit".[39]
Senators allege they were bribed to convict Corona
In his September 25, 2013, privilege speech, Jinggoy Estrada, one of the senators who voted to convict Corona of article two of the articles of impeachment, said that all senators, except Bongbong Marcos, Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor-Santiago, received ₱50 million each to remove Corona from office.[40][41][42][43] On January 20, 2014, Senator Bong Revilla revealed that President Aquino forced him to convict the Chief Justice.[44][45][46] Revilla narrated that he was picked up by Roxas, then secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications and known ally of Aquino, and brought to the residence of Aquino.[47] Revilla recalled how Roxas explained why Corona should be impeached.[48] Revilla quoted Aquino as begging him, “My friend, do it for me as a favour. (Corona) must be impeached."[49] The President's spokesperson confirmed that the President indeed met with Revilla and other senators but denied the allegation that Aquino told them to vote for Corona’s conviction.[50] Malacañang Palace, however, refused to comment on the propriety of President Aquino’s personally meeting with the senator-judges.[51]
After the Supreme Court
In June 2016, the Sandiganbayan Third Division dismissed the pending criminal cases of Corona after his death.[52]
On November 3, 2022, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the last case against Corona and his heirs, as well as his trustees, assignees, transferees, and successors-in-interest, because they were able to “adequately prove that their income could enable them to acquire the questioned assets.”[53][54][55]
The Sandiganbayan pointed out that "it remained undisputed that respondents both came from families of very comfortable means and that even before his appointment to the Supreme Court, CJ Corona had financial capabilities to shoulder huge expenses and had lived a very contented life with his family."[56] CJ Corona was a successful lawyer and his "engagement with the private sectors appeared to have been lucrative as shown by the positions he held in the private" banking and tax consulting institutions, as well as his position as Professor of Law at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law.[57] The court also stated that the computations offered by the prosecution merely added the earned income of Corona without considering the money market placements and the substantial interest income earned over 10-year periods.[58] The court ended its decision with, "For the future's worth, as stressed by the Supreme Court in In Re: Ma. Cristina Roco Corona, the SALN is a tool for public transparency and never a weapon for political vendetta."[59]
On January 30, 2023, the Sandiganbayan decision was declared final and executory.
^Philippine Constitution. Manila, Philippines: Republic of the Philippines. February 11, 1987. Archived from the original on June 25, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
^"SC orders distribution of Hacienda". No. November 20, 2011. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
^"SC orders distribution of Hacienda". No. November 20, 2011. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
^"SC orders distribution of Hacienda". No. November 20, 2011. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
^"SC orders distribution of Hacienda". No. November 20, 2011. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
^"SC orders distribution of Hacienda". No. November 20, 2011. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. Official Gazette, Philippine Government. November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
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