Sereno impeachment will fail, says bishop

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

A Catholic bishop is optimistic that the attempt to remove Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno will ultimately fail.

Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes warned that the efforts of some quarters to boot out officials who were human rights advocates would lead to a “dictatorship of death.”

“I don’t think that these attempts of impeachment will succeed against this great woman who do excellent service of justice to our country,” the prelate said on Tuesday.

Bastes made the remarks a day after Sereno filed her reply to the impeachment complaint against her for corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution.

The prelate warned of a “dictatorship of death” amid the attempts to remove officials who respect human rights.

“The desire of the people close to the Duterte administration to remove officials who have respect for human rights will lead to a dictatorship of death,” Bastes added.

For his part, Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos said the impeachment process would never be fair and just for Sereno, criticizing it as a mere numbers game.

“It is just a numbers game, capitalizing on the majority and president’s whims and political party. We witnessed this biased, abusive and revengeful use of impeachment with the Corona case,” he said.

Santos added that the impeachment case against Sereno would just be like the one against the late Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona, who was removed from office in 2012.

“Impeachment is just a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. Thus impeachment can be abused and misused by sitting President and who controls the Congress,” Santos said.