Lagman sees ‘ruse’ as sign of weak impeach case vs CJ

Rep Edcel Lagman. EDWIN BACASMAS

Any attempt by allies of President Rodrigo Duterte to void Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s appointment due to her alleged failure to meet all the requirements for the top post in the Supreme Court would just show the weakness of the impeachment case against her, House opposition leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said on Saturday.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier said he wished to ask the Office of the Solicitor General to assail the validity of Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, possibly opening a path for her fellow magistrates to declare her post vacant.

Alvarez said this might be in the form of a quo warranto petition, which is a legal proceeding where an official’s right to hold an office or government position is challenged.

“Any quo warranto petition questioning the authority or basis for Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to hold the position of chief magistrate is doomed to fail,” Lagman said.

“The quo warranto ruse is an admission that an impeachment trial will not prosper in the Senate,” he said.

In the course of the House hearings on the impeachment complaint against Sereno, it was alleged that she had not submitted all the requirements for her appointment, including complete financial statements, and her supposed failure to pass a psychological assessment.

Drilon: It won’t prosper

A quo warranto action against Sereno “has long prescribed,” Lagman said, citing Section 11 of Rule 66 of the Rules of Court, which states that a petition for quo warranto must be filed within one year after a person had assumed public office.

Sereno was appointed Chief Justice by then President Benigno Aquino III on Aug. 24, 2012. She took office the following day.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Saturday also said he believed any petition to nullify Sereno’s appointment would not prosper and the issues raised against her could be settled in an impeachment trial.

According to the Constitution, the Chief Justice should be a natural born Filipino, 45 years of age and practiced law for at least 15 years, Drilon said, adding that a psychological test was not required.

“In my view, petitions to nullify her appointment will not prosper,” Drilon said. It was best to let the impeachment trial take its course, he said.

The House justice committee, which tackled the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Larry Gadon, finished its hearings last Tuesday. On the same day, 13 members of the Supreme Court reached a “consensus” to force Sereno to go on indefinite leave.

In a speech at the University of Baguio on Friday, Sereno appealed to the country’s political leaders to give her her day in the Senate impeachment court.

Gadon cites 1997 case

She said the process should not be dragged further, “nor couple it with calls for extraconstitutional help to facilitate the ouster of the Chief Justice — such as calling on the Supreme Court to do the job of the Senate and oust me, whether by an internal action or by an action of the Solicitor General, and by delaying what is an already agonizingly long proceedings.”

To those who have been asking her to resign, she said: “No, I will not …. I do not owe anyone the duty to resign; I owe the people the duty to tell my story.”

In an exchange of text messages with reporters on Saturday, Gadon said senators who would sit as impeachment court judges should be reminded of a 1997 case where a court interpreter, Delsa Flores, was dismissed by the Supreme Court for not declaring her market stall as part of her assets.

He said Drilon himself cited the case in justifying the 2012 conviction of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona, who did not disclose all his assets.

Gadon said Flores’ case applied strongly to Sereno’s situation.

He accused Sereno of not truthfully declaring her earnings as a private lawyer. She also did not file her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) for several years as a law professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) before she joined the judiciary in August 2010, Gadon said.

Sereno was unable to submit all her SALNs when she was considered for the Chief Justice position by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).

She had written the JBC asking for an exemption from submitting her SALN as her records when she was still a UP law professor could no longer be located. —With a report from Jocelyn R. Uy