THE impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona 10 years ago by 188 members of the House of Representatives, and his eventual conviction by 20 members of the Senate, is one of the darkest moments in post-martial law Philippine political history. It was an important moment in my own personal politics, for it practically sealed my disgust of the yellow brand, all embodied by the push by then President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd who personally campaigned for Corona’s ouster.

The compliance of Congress to a vindictive directive by a sitting president was only further sealed when right after the conviction, senators who voted for Corona’s removal all received additional funds for their pet projects. Yellow media was also relentless in painting Corona as a villain, and these moments made me acquire this contempt of many so-called investigative journalists, who before this episode I respected. Corona died a broken man. But his death may have probably triggered the beginning of the end of yellow politics, so that even if it was rebranded to the color pink people still repudiated it with a resounding vote in the recent elections. The fact that the one who emerged victorious is no other than Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who joined Senators Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor-Santiago in voting for Corona’s acquittal, is karmic enough.

A close perusal of the emergence of the pro-Duterte force in the 2016 elections would reveal a popular discourse that often cited the impeachment of Corona as one of the sins of the political elites. It may not have translated into actual electoral defeat of the House members and senators who persecuted him, and this is understandable because people usually do not punish elected officials on the basis of their voting records. But what was evident is that the Corona impeachment partly helped solidify the antielite stance among many voters, and contributed to the organic sentiments that nourished the emergence of the pro-Duterte electoral base.

Corona’s impeachment was also one of the factors that played a role in the diminution of the political capital of President Aquino 3rd. The fate of Corona in the hands of Aquino 3rd was repeatedly cited by the diehard Duterte supporters (DDS) and Marcos loyalists as one of his most egregious sins, and it practically hounded Aquino 3rd until his death. Filipinos are known to fall to karmic symbolisms, and many saw the optics of karma descending on many of those who joined the persecution of Corona. Three of the senators who voted for his conviction, including the one who gave the 16th vote to seal his fate, later ended up in jail. And his successor, who also played a role in the impeachment proceedings, ended up getting the boot herself in an extraordinary proceeding where the Supreme Court practically ruled that she was not even a legitimate replacement of Corona as chief justice.

But death did not give Renato Corona and his family respite from state-sponsored prosecution and persecution. The Aquino-appointed Ombudsman at the time filed a forfeiture case worth P134 million of his peso and dollar bank deposits, as well as P17.5 million worth of real estate against Corona and his family based on the argument that these assets had been illegally acquired because they were disproportionate to the family’s legal income, and that a substantial portion of which were not declared in his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).

It took a decade for the case to be finally resolved, and the decision of the Sandiganbayan is a fitting vindication of Renato Corona, and will remain a blight in the political records of those who had a part in his impeachment and removal from office.

The Sandiganbayan ruled that all the above-cited assets were legally acquired, and while Corona failed to initially include these in his SALN, that did not necessarily mean that they were ill-gotten. The anticorruption court also noted that the non-inclusion in the SALN was later rectified.

The main case against Corona during the impeachment trial largely rode on his failure to declare his assets in his SALN. Senators who voted for his conviction even cited the case of an ordinary court employee who was dismissed from service and barred from further employment by the government for her failure to declare a market stall in her SALN. But what was glossed over is the presence of actual intent to defraud, and whether Corona had that intent.

The Sandiganbayan settled this conundrum when it ruled that: “Such innocuous mistakes [of failure to declare assets] may be addressed by the customary corrective action enabled by Section 10 of RA 6713, as in this case. While the SALN is an instrument that ensures accountability, the review and compliance procedures work as a buffer that prevents the haphazard filing of actions against public officials and employees.” The anti-graft court further asserted that the case against Corona and his family merits leniency since the failure to declare assets in the SALN fell under “casual, isolated and/ or infrequent non-declarations or misdeclarations that do not point to a scheme to mislead and defraud.”

It would be hard to expect those members of Congress who voted to impeach Corona in the House and convict him in the Senate, and who remain as such in the current Congress, to express remorse and apologize. We can grant them a certain level of pride, if they wish. But one of the very least things they can do is to pass legislation to rationalize the filing of cases against government employees who fail to declare assets in their SALN, and to strengthen the presence of actual malice and intent to defraud as a necessary condition. In addition, it should be clearly spelled out that innocuous mistakes should not be grounds for termination, and more so, should never be considered as an impeachable offense.

This is the least this Republic can do to make amends with a man whom our political system, upon the directive of a vengeful executive, has persecuted even when he was already dead.