House not keen to summon Sereno, tells accuser to shut up

The House of Representatives’ justice committee is not inclined to grant the request of impeachment complainant Lorenzo Gadon for Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to be subpoenaed.

“We will not tackle it anymore. I think the hearing has been proceeding well; we don’t need to make those potshots,” committee chair Rep. Reynaldo Umali told dzMM.

Umali also said that Gadon “should not get ahead of the committee and Congress.”

“That’s what makes things difficult. Because of his pronouncements, we get somewhat criticized,” he said.

In the last hearing this year, Umali asked Gadon to “please let the impeachment proceedings proceed with less pronouncements from him.”

Sereno’s spokesperson Josalee Deinla, for her part, said the chief magistrate “is not a witness subject to a subpoena process” since she was a respondent in the complaint.

“Mr. Gadon cannot brush aside our fundamental laws. He is the one who deserves to be arrested or held in contempt for committing multiple perjurious statements and for putting pressure on Congress to violate the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the Chief Justice,” she said in a statement.

Gadon said on Monday that he wanted Sereno to appear at the House proceedings, which would resume in January, because there were certain issues that only she could personally answer.

He said Sereno should thus be subpoenaed under the pain of being cited in contempt and ordered arrested.