BALER, Aurora—President Benigno Aquino III is not about to declare a ceasefire in his word war with impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona despite pleas from senators for the heads of two coequal branches of government to restrain themselves.
Mr. Aquino on Sunday stepped up his attacks on Corona as Senator Edgardo Angara, one of the judges in Corona’s impeachment trial, sat a few meters away.
The President said his verbal attacks were not directed at the Chief Justice but at “the system” for which Corona was “the face” that the administration was fighting against.
“To keep quiet about the whole thing is, I think, wrong,” he told reporters in response to calls by some senator-judges for him and Corona to stop their word war and to just let the Senate impeachment court do its job.
Attending the 33rd founding anniversary of the province and the commemoration of the 124th birth anniversary of Doña Aurora Aragon-Quezon, the President said he would continue to voice out his thoughts on Corona “if needed.”
He led the wreath-laying rites on the statue of Doña Aurora and later inaugurated Aurora Medical Hospital.
Senator Angara thanked Mr. Aquino for accepting the invitation to attend the celebrations. “We remember acts of kindness and gratitude. We will never forget this,” he told the President during a program held on the capitol grounds.
On Thursday, at a meeting with students from various colleges and universities at La Consolacion College in Manila, Mr. Aquino said Corona’s failure to declare his multimillion-peso bank accounts was sufficient basis to remove him from office.
The President said Corona should be held to account using the same standards that caused a court interpreter to lose her job in 1997 for not declaring ownership of a stall in a public market.
Responding to Mr. Aquino’s attacks, Corona challenged the President to disclose his financial and psychological records. “We have an obligation to the people that we are of sound mind,” the Chief Justice said in a statement.
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