Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has dismissed anew the efforts to oust her, describing it as a “well-funded” scheme based on intrigues, if not imagination.
She made the statement on the same day the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and the Makabayan bloc of lawmakers asked the Supreme Court to allow them to intervene in the quo warranto petition in which the Office of the Solicitor General is seeking Sereno’s ouster by questioning her qualifications.
The quo warranto petition is on top of the impeachment complaint against Sereno which is pending in the House of Representatives.
The impeachment complaint, filed by lawyer Lorenzo Gadon, accuses the chief justice of the following:
1. Failure to submit statements of assets, liabilities and net worth or SALNs to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), which screens applicants for judiciary posts and failure to declare properties in Bataan and Davao City;
2. Misuse of P18mn in public funds on the purchase of a bulletproof Toyota Land Cruiser, hiring of information technology consultant Helen Macasaet, and selection of the Shangri-La Boracay resort for the 3rd Asean Chief Justices’ meeting;
3. Usurping the authority of the Supreme Court as a collegial body by forming a Regional Office of Court Administrator, issuing a temporary restraining order on the case of Coalition of Senior Citizens party list, and transferring the Maute cases from Marawi to Taguig City without en banc or full-court approval;
4. Abusing her position as ex-officio chair of the JBC by excluding the name of then Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza from consideration for the post of associate justice;
5. Interference in the inquiry by the House of Representatives on the alleged misuse of P66mn in tobacco funds by Ilocos Norte government employees because of a Court of Appeals stay order on the House investigation and undermining the House justice panel’s impeachment proceedings; and
6. Abuse of discretionary power.
“In an increasingly chaotic, noisy and confusing world, I am making a call to reason. Since the impeachment complaint has been filed against me … it has been eight months of unrelenting attacks against my person and my office,” Sereno said during the “Women vs.
Strongman: Filipinas Resisting” forum in UP Diliman. “It is apparently a well-funded, formidable machinery, with the complaint ever expanding its scope in an effort to hurl all kinds of charges against me.”
The chief justice, who is on leave, also dismissed the infighting among Supreme Court justices as a petty disagreement not worthy of national attention.
At least seven Supreme Court justices testified against Sereno during the impeachment proceedings in the House Justice panel: Teresita de Castro, Francis Jardaleza, Noel Tijam, Samuel Martires, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, and Andres Reyes.
Sereno insists that she is innocent of all the charges, and vows to answer the accusations once she faces the Senate impeachment court.
Yesterday the IBP and lawmakers asked the high tribunal to junk the quo warranto case.
“Having been appointed to her current post, the chief justice is presumed to have been previously adjudged by the President as having met the requirement of integrity,” the IBP pointed out. “Consistent with the separation of powers, such judgment cannot be reviewed, much less reversed, by the Supreme Court.”
“Under the Constitution, the members of the Supreme Court may not be ordered dismissed by any government authority other than by the Senate after an impeachment proceeding,” it added, “The president remains the ultimate judge of a candidate’s worthiness. Entertaining the quo warranto petition on account of the chief justice’s supposed lack of integrity is tantamount to subjecting her to the disciplinary authority of the Supreme Court.”
In an opposition-in-intervention petition, the Makabayan bloc sought to junk the petition as “it intentionally derails the ongoing impeachment process in Congress, and it attempts to wrest the constitutional power away from the Congress”.