ANTONIO P. CONTRERAS WHEN the Liberal Party, acting at the behest of then President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd, impeached Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, they lowered the bar for impeachment. They considered the act of misdeclaration in a statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, or SALN, on the same level as a culpable violation of the Constitution, and as amounting to a betrayal of public trust. They succeeded. Renato Corona was convicted. Humiliated and vilified, he died a broken man, all because he committed a mistake in his SALN. But the LP did not anticipate that the ghost of Renato Corona would come back to haunt them. They did not foresee that one of them, in the person...
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