No Senate resolution seeking SC review of Sereno decision

Congress adjourned early Thursday with the Senate failing to adopt a controversial resolution through which senators were urging the Supreme Court to review its decision to oust Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno through a quo warranto petition.

The Senate tackled Resolution No. 738 after midnight on Thursday just after the chamber approved the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law.

Senators Panfilo Lacson and Francis Pangilinan had an exchange over the intention of the resolution, which sought to express the sense of the Senate on the Supreme Court decision to remove Sereno not by the impeachment process required by the Constitution.

The Senate closed its session at 2 a.m. without voting on the resolution.

Amid talk that some of the 14 senators who signed the resolution were withdrawing their signatures, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III maintained he would not withdraw his signature but made it clear that he did not sign it “to influence the [Supreme] Court” but to “express the sense or the opinion” of the chamber on the quo warranto issue.

Pimentel said the resolution would be persuasive, if ever, only to the people and not to the high court.

Before the Senate tackled the resolution, Sereno filed a motion asking the justices to reconsider their decision.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros said she expected the Senate to return to the resolution during the resumption of sessions in July.

Hontiveros said she was unaware of any of the 14 senators wanting to withdraw their signatures in the resolution, noting that with the extension of the interpellations, the signatories may reach out to the senators who did not sign to support it.

Besides Hontiveros, Pangilinan and Pimentel, the resolution was also signed by Senators Franklin Drilon, Bam Aquino, Antonio Trillanes IV, Leila de Lima, Loren Legarda, Ralph Recto, Joel Villanueva, Sherwin Gatchalian, Francis Escudero, Sonny Angara and Grace Poe.