page_title: Renato Corona
section_title: As Chief Justice
hierarchical_section_title: Renato Corona / As Chief Justice
caption_attribution_description: English: Chambers of Chief Justice Renato C. Corona
context_page_description: Renato Tirso Antonio Coronado Corona 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 former 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 committing the charges under article two 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.
context_section_description: 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,"
caption: Chambers of Renato C. Corona in the new Supreme Court of the Philippines building.
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