Renato Antonio Coronado Corona (October 15, 1948 - April 29, 2016) was the 23rd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. He served as an Associate Justice after being appointed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on April 9, 2002, and later as Chief Justice on May 12, 2010, upon the retirement of Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
Corona was previously a law professor, private law practitioner and member of the Cabinet under two Presidents, Fidel V. Ramos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, before being appointed to the high tribunal.
On December 12, 2011, he was impeached by the House of Representatives. On May 29, 2012, he was found guilty by the Senate of violating Article II of the Articles of Impeachment filed against him pertaining to his failure to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth to the public.
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Background
Renato Tirso 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 of Santa Cruz, Manila. He was married to Cristina Basa Roco. They had three children and six grandchildren.
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Education
Corona graduated with gold medal honors from the Ateneo de Manila grade school in 1962 and high school in 1966.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, also from Ateneo de Manila in 1970 where he was the editor-in-chief of The GUIDON, the university student newspaper. He finished his Bachelor of Laws at the Ateneo Law School in 1974. He placed 25th highest out of 1,965 candidates in the bar examinations with a grade of 84.6%. After pursuing law school, he obtained his Master of Business Administration degree at the Ateneo Professional Schools.
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.
Doctoral degree controversy
On December 22, 2011, Marites Vitug of online journalism site, Rappler.com, 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. She wrote that Corona did not submit a dissertation to complete his PhD, as required by the university. And that Corona overstayed, since UST requires that PhD programs be completed in five years with maximum residency of seven years.
Basing from a previous interview, Vitug said Corona started his coursework on his PhD in 2000 or 2001. Corona graduated in April 2011, a decade later, where he was one of six graduates to garner top honors during ceremonies intended to commemorate the university's quadricentennial.
In a statement, the UST Graduate School denied that it broke its rules to favor Corona. It 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. UST likewise questioned the objectivity of the article citing that Vitug has had a run-in with Corona and the Supreme Court. Vitug supported Associate Justice Antonio Carpio's bid for the chief justiceship in her articles in Rogue and Newsbreak
Sought for comment, Vitug said UST's statement "basically says, we have rules but we can flout them, invoking academic freedom and autonomy."
The book, Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court, also written by Vitug, found that his claim that he graduated with honors from his Bachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila University is not recorded in the university's archives.
As Chief Justice
On May 12, 2010, two days after the 2010 general election and a month before President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's term expired, Corona was appointed the 23rd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, succeeding Reynato Puno who had reached the mandatory age of retirement.
His appointment was highly criticized, notably by then presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III and former President Fidel V. Ramos, due to a constitutional prohibition against Arroyo from making appointments two months before the election up to the end of her term. Before being elected president, Aquino said that he will not recognize any chief justice appointment that will be made by the Arroyo administration, and mentioned impeachment as an option to remove him by saying "The legislature has the power of impeachment if they feel there are grounds to impeach an impeachable constitutional body. That is open to any president... Therefore we will have to restudy the matter, study our options. At this point in time Congress has yet to be elected."
However, an earlier Supreme Court decision in Arturo M. De Castro v. Judicial and Bar Council, et al. on March 17, 2010, upheld Arroyo's right as incumbent president to appoint the Chief Justice. Voting 9-1, the high tribunal underscored that the 90-day period for the President to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court is a special provision to establish a definite mandate for the President as the appointing power and that the election ban on appointments does not extend to the Supreme Court.
Corona abstained from ruling on the case together with Chief Justice Puno and Associate Justice Antonio Carpio while Associate Justices Antonio Eduardo Nachura and Presbitero Velasco, Jr. dismissed the petition as premature. Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, in her dissenting opinion, stressed that the Court can function effectively during the midnight appointments ban without an appointed Chief Justice.
Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, a constitutional expert, warned critics of the Corona's appointment to obey the rule of law, saying that the appointment of Corona has already been laid to rest under the doctrine of res judicata, meaning that it can no longer be relitigated in court, because it has already been decided with finality. Further stating that "After the Supreme Court decision in De Castro v. Judicial and Bar Council last March, which settled the issue, any petition is now precluded, on the theory of so-called collateral estoppel," She also commented that "The problem with the critics is that they mistake the law as it is; with the law as it ought to be, according to their layman's interpretation. A line has to be drawn between the rule of law and the dystopian concept of freewheeling ethics,"
Impeachment
On December 12, 2011, 188 of the 285 members of the House of Representatives signed an impeachment complaint against Corona. 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.
Corona was accused of consistently ruling with partiality to former President Arroyo in cases involving her administration and of failing to disclose his statement of assets as required by the Constitution. However he argues 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) and that the peso accounts are co-mingled funds. Corona said that the case against him was politically motivated as part of President Benigno Aquino III's persecution of political enemies.
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. 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. Senator Joker Arroyo denounced the verdict, ending 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". Senator Pia Cayetano explained her vote by stating that "the failure to declare $2.4 million and some 80 million pesos is not minor."
In his September 25, 2013, privilege speech, Jinggoy Estrada, one of the Senators who voted to oust Corona as Chief Justice said that all Senators except Bong Bong Marcos, Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor-Santiago received P50 million each to remove Corona from his position. On January 20, 2014, Senator Bong Revilla revealed that President Aquino spoke with him to convict the Chief Justice.
Post-Impeachment
On April 25, 2014, the Department of Justice issued hold departure order against Corona along with former Ilocos Sur Governor Luis Chavit Singson. On June 1, 2016, the Sandiganbayan Third Division dismisses the pending criminal cases of Corona.
Death
Corona died on April 29, 2016, at 1:48 a.m. at The Medical City in Pasig due to complications of a heart attack. He also suffered from kidney disease and diabetes.
Notable opinions
- Islamic Da'Wah Council v. Office of the Executive Secretary (2003) -- on right of national government to act as the exclusive authority to issue halal certifications
- Republic v. Sandiganbayan (2003) -- on the forfeiture of Swiss assets of the Marcos family
- Francisco v. House of Rep. (2003) - Separate Opinion -- on the impeachment resolution against Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr.
- Uy v. PHELA Trading (2005) -- on constitutional right to counsel
- Taruc v. De la Cruz (2005) -- on court jurisdiction over challenges to religious excommunication
- Neypes v. Court of Appeals (2005) -- on period for appeal from decisions of trial courts
- Lambino v. COMELEC (2006) - Dissenting Opinion -- on People's Initiative as a mode to amend the Constitution
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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