Renato Corona

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.

On April 25, 2014, the Department of Justice issued a hold departure order against Corona along with former Ilocos Sur Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson. In June 2016, the Sandiganbayan Third Division dismissed the pending criminal cases of Corona after his death.

In his September 25, 2013, privilege speech, Jinggoy Estrada, one of the senators who voted to convict Corona of article two of the articles of impeachment, said that all senators, except Bongbong Marcos, Joker Arroyo and Miriam Defensor-Santiago, received ₱50 million each to remove Corona from office. On January 20, 2014, Senator Bong Revilla revealed that President Aquino spoke with him to convict the Chief Justice.

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."

On July 5, 2011, the Supreme Court, headed by Corona, issued a landmark decision on the Hacienda Luisita case, wherein, under agrarian reform laws, the Court upheld both the distribution of land to the hacienda's farm workers and the revocation of the SDO agreement forged in 1989. Hacienda Luisita is a plantation that was controlled by the then incumbent President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III's family. The control and ownership of the plantation had been the center of a decades-long legal battle between the farmers and the Cojuangcos. The Central Bank and GSIS had endorsed the loans that allowed Jose Cojuangco to take control of the Hacienda in 1957, on the condition that the Hacienda was to be distributed eventually to the farmers under then President Magsaysay's social justice program. The Cojuangco group was given a ten-year window to distribute the lands to the farmers as stipulated. But the Cojuangco-Aquinos refused to honor their legal obligation to distribute the land.

Allies of President Benigno Aquino III pursued Corona's impeachment. A few months later, on December 12, 2011, the Chief Justice was impeached by the House of Representatives. The impeachment and the Senate's guilty verdict were later described to be part of Aquino's revenge against the Chief Justice for the Supreme Court's Hacienda Luisita decision, a move that critics said was meant to have a "chilling effect" on anyone else who dared to oppose the administration and its allies. The Aquino administration gave the senator-judges between P50 to P100 million (fifty to one hundred million pesos) to convict the Chief Justice. The money used to bribe the congressmen who signed the impeachment complaint and the senator-judges who voted to convict were government funds the Aquino administration had misappropriated under the now-infamous "DAP" (Disbursement Acceleration Program). "The Aquino administration used P6.5 billion from the little-known Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) before, during and after the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona to bend Congress to its will, two members of the House of Representatives told the Inquirer." The Supreme Court later ruled that the DAP was unconstitutional. A retired chief justice said that because of the bribery involved, the removal of Chief Justice Corona is null and void.

As part of the well-orchestrated and well-funded attack on the Chief Justice, on December 22, 2011, Marites Dañguilan Vitug of the now defunct and highly discredited online "journalism" site Rappler, which was shut down by a unanimous decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating the constitutional provision banning foreign ownership in media ></ref>, 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. Vitug's allegations were later exposed as part of a large-scale black propaganda campaign against the Chief Justice. Vitug, Rappler, and Maria Ressa, Rappler's CEO, have been discredited since Ressa was convicted of libel, a decision the Court of Appeals upheld, ruling that Ressa "did not offer a scintilla of proof that they verified the imputations of various crimes in the disputed article ... [Rappler] just simply published them as news in their online publication in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not.". The judgement also pointed out that Ressa had deliberately called herself an executive editor, rather than the editor-in-chief, in an attempt to avoid liability.

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.

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.

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.

The Supreme Court also ordered that the date of the "taking" be fixed at November 21, 1989 rather than 2011, as the Aquinos argued, a ruling which cost the Aquinos billions of pesos (in just compensation). The Cojuangco-Aquinos, a very powerful political family, finally "lost" the land that was never theirs.

The Hacienda Luisita legal battle and final Supreme Court decision spanned almost fifty years. The Cojuangco-Aquinos refused to honor their legal obligation to distribute the land under the social justice program, as per the terms of the loan that allowed them to take over the Hacienda. Using their immense financial and political powers, the Cojuangco-Aquinos tried to wear down the poor farmers with the decades-long legal battle. On January 22, 1987, thousands of farmers marched to Malacañang Palace to demand the distribution of the land. 13 protesting farmers were shot in what is now known as the "Mendiola Massacre." On November 2004, the farmers held a protest against the mass retrenchment of farm workers. The farmers, their children and other protesters/supporters were gunned down, and farmers and activists have blamed the Aquinos for trying to silence them. This was called the "Hacienda Luisita Massacre."

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.

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 out of 1,965 candidates in the bar examination with a grade of 84.6%. After pursuing law studies, he obtained his Master of Business Administration degree at the Ateneo Professional Schools.

Corona graduated with gold medal honors from the Ateneo de Manila grade school in 1962 and high school in 1966.

Renato Tereso Antonio Coronado Corona (October 15, 1948 – April 29, 2016) was a Filipino judge who was the 23rd chief justice of the Philippines from 2010 to 2012. 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.

Renato Tereso 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.