MANILA -- Supreme Court employees hugged and cried before former Chief Justice Renato Corona as he cleared his desk on Monday, nearly a week after he was removed from office by the Senate impeachment court.

Corona, along with wife Cristina and daughter Carla, went to his spacious office in the Supreme Court’s second floor to pack his things. The Coronas stayed for at least three hours, busily receiving employees who brought T-shirts and photos of the magistrate for him to sign.

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"We will miss him (Corona). He's very nice even to us lowly employees," a Supreme Court official said.

Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Presbitero Velasco, Lucas Bersamin, Jose Perez and Bienvenido Reyes, an appointee of President Benigno Aquino III, also came to visit their ousted leader.

For six months, court employees rallied behind Corona in his fight to save judicial independence, which was allegedly put at risk because of Aquino’s support to the impeachment trial.

Corona was stripped of his position last week after being found guilty of not publicly declaring multi-million peso cash assets, an offense tantamount to betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.

Twenty of the 23 senator-judges voted for his conviction.

Taking Corona’s place for now is Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a bitter rival to the post two years ago.

President Aquino is set to appoint Corona’s replacement after the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the body tasked to screen applications and nominations for the Chief Justice position, is done with the selection process.

The JBC members met Monday for the selection process and agreed to require candidates for the position to open their bank deposits for scrutiny.

The requirement came after Corona himself called on public officials in his impeachment trial that they should also do an outright waiver of confidentiality for the sake of transparency and accountability.

Corona admitted of owning some P180-million worth of dollar and peso accounts not reflected in his asset statement, which was used by 20 senators to convict him for betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.

“This will be for purposes of evaluation by the JBC. With the waiver, we will be able to look into their foreign currency bank accounts,” lawyer Milagros Cayosa, the representative of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines to the JBC, told reporters Monday.

Senator Francis Escudero, the Senate representative to the JBC, made the motion during the meeting of the eight-member council at the Supreme Court.

Aspirants who are from the government will be asked to provide their statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) and those from the private sector will be required to submit their income tax returns (ITR) from two previous years.

“The waiver includes bank deposits on local and foreign currencies and the opening of their SALNs and ITRs in favor of the JBC. This will allow the council to check if indeed their bank accounts are reflected in their SALNs or ITRs,” Escudero said.

The new requirement will be included in the notices of vacancy and acceptance of application and nomination to be released in the next few days.

Reported contenders Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima took no part in the proceedings out of propriety.

Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares was also floated as possible successor to Corona but she refused to make a big deal out of the issue since the position has not been “advertised yet.”

“I’ll think about it when it’s there, if it gets there,” she said. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)