Saying the justice system was a “major battleground for reform”, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday gave another speech that could be seen as pushing for the removal of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Opening an antigraft workshop for Cabinet officials in the Palace, Aquino said his administration’s graft-busting efforts would be "rendered a mockery if certain elements are still able to prevent Gloria Arroyo, for example, from being held accountable."
"We cannot sustainably fight corruption unless we reintroduce a sense of accountability—a sense that, if you commit a crime, you will be punished,” he said.
"If certain elements are still able to prevent Gloria Arroyo, for example, from being held accountable then it makes a mockery of our anticorruption efforts.”
The president’s allies in the House of Representatives impeached Corona in December after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on the government’s travel ban against former President Gloria Arroyo, because the government had not yet filed a formal case of electoral sabotage against Arroyo.
Compromised
She was later formally charged before the Pasay City regional trial court in Metro Manila.
But the president said he believed the government’s case would have been irreparably compromised if Arroyo had managed to leave the country on account of the Supreme Court TRO.
"We want our judiciary to dispense justice blindly, as it should. And perhaps this explains our fight to restore integrity to the judiciary, which has made headlines everywhere,” Aquino said in his speech.
No doubt
"No one should doubt our justice system is a major battleground for reform," he added.
The president said that while the country had made progress in fighting corruption, the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom released by the Heritage Foundation showed the problem of judicial inefficiency and susceptibility to outside pressures “remain a serious concern”.
"We want to send a stern yet simple message: No one evades justice. There are no exceptions in our campaign against corruption,” Aquino said.
