Chief Justice calls for special en banc session on Arroyo travel order

MANILA, Philippines—Chief Justice Renato Corona has ordered a special en banc session to allow the magistrates to deliberate on various petitions filed in the Supreme Court in connection with the averted foreign trip of former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

In a hastily called news briefing on Wednesday afternoon, court spokesperson and administrator Jose Midas Marquez said Corona set the special full court session at 11 a.m. on Friday.

“This is to tackle pleadings which were not (deliberated on) during the regular en banc session last Tuesday,” Marquez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

He said among those, which would be taken up during the special session, were the appeal filed by the Department of Justice, Arroyo’s motion to move the November 22 oral argument, to an earlier date and the “alleged defiance” of the DOJ to comply with the TRO.

Marquez clarified that Corona’s order did not mean that the implementation of the TRO would be temporarily suspended.

“The TRO stays. It is the position of the court that it is immediately executory and it is continuous to be effective until lifted or suspended by the court,” he said.