Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona has been convicted. Now, the people who worked to remove him have to make sure that all the effort expended to reach that goal doesn't actually lead to something uncontrollable and unintended, like real reform and transparency.

To some, the residual vindictiveness of those who plotted Corona's ouster long after the deed was done is surprising. To those who believe that the conviction must be contained without causing any damage to anyone beyond Corona himself, however, the continuation of the move to vilify him makes perfect sense.

Why, for instance, would this administration's internal revenue commissioner continue to hound the convicted chief justice for alleged tax fraud, when that charge was never alleged in all the months that he was tried? And yet, this same official inexplicably felt the need to give an "assurance" that Corona would still be pursued for alleged non-payment of taxes.

It was as if getting the top magistrate to pay the proper taxes was what prompted the move to unseat him since the end of last year. Perhaps the campaign to impeach and convict Corona will ultimately be declared part of the government's drive to arrest big-time tax evaders; stranger propaganda spins from this media-obsessed administration have been seen before.

The belated entry of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the mopping-up operation initiated by the Aquino administration, which is still savoring how it had engineered the first-ever removal of a sitting chief justice, is logical. Even now that Corona has been convicted, there remains the task of making sure that the pressure on him is kept up, so that the focus the real goal is maintained.

Left untended, the aftermath could turn the tide of sympathy in favor of the convicted magistrate. And, as if that were not bad enough, people may actually start insisting that every public official – from President Noynoy Aquino on down – declare all assets and allow detailed scrutiny of bank accounts.

That is certainly not what the framers of the Corona impeachment trial and conviction had intended. All Aquino and his minions really wanted was to get the chief justice out of office by whatever legal subterfuge they could come up with.

Aquino himself has repeatedly pooh-poohed the call for him, his Cabinet subordinates and his Congress minions to sign any sort of waiver that will allow such investigations into their bank dealings. That, more than any other declaration from Malacanang Palace in the wake of Corona's conviction, should make everyone understand what this entire political mega-production was all about.

It was never about transparency under an administration that cannot even make good on its campaign promise to pass a Freedom of Information Act. It certainly isn't about Aquino making following through on the unbidden vow he made during the same campaign, together with two other candidates, to open his bank accounts to anyone's scrutiny.

This was always about controlling the judiciary by cutting off its head, in order to appoint a more compliant one and to strike the fear of God in those who remain. This was about ensuring the conviction of a top magistrate who asked uncomfortable, unanswerable questions about, among other things, Aquino's family evading land reform for so long – and then demanding obscene sums in "payment" when it became clear that they could not do so anymore.

The removal of Corona was always about marshaling the entire awesome forces of government to remove someone who did not agree with it – someone who (mistakenly, in turns out) believed that the truth, law, fairness and even common decency were enough weapons to defeat his accusers with. It was about removing a chief justice because that was possible and because of the discouragement such a dubious accomplishment would cause on anyone foolish enough to test the axiom that City Hall just can't be fought.

That's all this has always been about.

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One day, some scholar of the Philippine Senate will be able to find out how and why 20 members of a supposedly fiercely independent branch of the legislature sold their souls – and their legacy – to an incumbent President. Right now, only the 20 who convicted Corona know why, in their hearts, they could not side with the law and fairness in the midst of a determined but ultimately pointless siege by Malacanang.

Oh, the 20 senators tried to explain their vote to hand over their integrity and independence to Aquino in every way they could. But it was truly revealing that, ultimately, all their legal and verbal contortions could be framed only in the context of the pithy defense of the totally clueless Lito Lapid of his vote.

Yes, Lapid, who said he did not understand the law but voted to convict anyway, for reasons he could not truly explain. That, in a nutshell, is what happened in the Senate last week.

For one shameful and tawdry moment, all 20 senators were Lito Lapid.*