Statement of the Makati Business Club on the Final Decision in the Chief Justice’s Trial

Quoted below is the MBC’s statement on the just concluded impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, has spoken. While certain rules and parameters had to be defined along the way due to the, in many ways, unprecedented nature of this impeachment trial, the Makati Business Club believes that the process leading to the senator judges’ final decision against Chief Justice Renato Corona was transparent, fair, and impartial. Mr. Corona and his defense team were given every opportunity to respond to the charges leveled against the Chief Justice, but the bar of integrity and moral fitness for the top magistrate of our country’s judicial system must necessarily be set at the highest levels. Thus, we hold the outcome of this impeachment trial as a triumph of our democracy’s system of checks and balances, and a revalidation of the fundamental principle that public office is a public trust and that all public officials are therefore accountable to the people.

Our country has taken another major step in the challenging road to political maturity. It is our sincere hope that this difficult process will lead to the strengthening and deepening of the commitment to build a culture of integrity not just in the Supreme Court and the judicial system but in the other branches of government—the Executive, the Senate, and the House of Representatives—and the private sector as well. Let us now work together to pursue with greater vigor the many necessary judicial, legal, political, and economic reforms that will strengthen and institutionalize the fight against corruption and uphold good governance.