Sereno chooses to keep silent

CHIEF Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno RAFFY LERMA/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno maintained her silence on Wednesday after President Duterte’s strong warning that he would be forced to declare martial law if the Supreme Court continued to interfere in his crackdown on illegal drug dealers.

“Many things have been said, there is no need to add to what has been said,” Sereno said in a statement read by court spokesperson Theodore Te to reporters.

Sereno wrote Mr. Duterte on Monday expressing concern over the spate of extrajudicial killings of people allegedly involved in illegal drugs and his accusations that seven judges had been involved in drug syndicates, including one who had been dead years ago and two already out of service.

Sereno “must be joking” when she said there should be warrants of arrest first before the drug suspects are arrested and detained, the President said.

He said that rule of law did not apply anymore when talking about 600,000 drug suspects who needed to be arrested because “they slaughter and rape children.”

Sereno earlier formed a fact-finding committee led by retired Supreme Court Justice Roberto A. Abad to investigate the four incumbent judges who were linked by Mr. Duterte to illegal drugs.

Sereno also said the high court would treat Mr. Duterte’s speech as complaint against the four judges: Exequiel Dagala of the Municipal Trial Court of Dapa-Socorro in Surigao province; Adriano Savillo, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 30 in Iloilo City; Domingo Casiple,  RTC Branch 7 Kalibo, Aklan; and Antonio Reyes of  RTC Branch 61 in Baguio City.

The four have been directed to respond to allegations against them once Malacañang files a formal complaint.

Misconstrued

Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said on Wednesday Sereno “misconstrued” the President’s decision to read out in public the names of the alleged “narcojudges,” one of whom was killed in an ambush in 2008.

He welcomed the court’s decision not to comment on Mr. Duterte’s threat of declaring martial law amid the possibility of a constitutional crisis. “It doesn’t want to exacerbate if there is any crisis,” Panelo told reporters.

“There may have been misunderstanding and misappreciation of facts,” he said. “The fact that the Supreme Court is not speaking about it anymore, I think they realized that they may have overreacted.”

Panelo said Sereno failed to recognize that the country’s problem on illegal drugs “has risen to a crisis proportion.”

“Now, almost everyone is in agreement that public safety is in danger. The imminence of the danger is so apparent that the President has to move and act swiftly and out of the box,” he said.

“From the tone of the letter, she was in effect reprimanding the President by saying that ‘we were not notified of this

earlier,’” Panelo explained.

“This is the President. You do not reprimand the President if you are a coequal branch. Maybe you can write the President and inquire, but not reprimand the President,” he said.

As to the possibility of Mr. Duterte causing a constitutional crisis, Panelo said the President would not want such a situation.

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