De Lima disputes Calida over quo warranto plea

Senator Leila de Lima PHOTO BY ERMA EDERA/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

“Who does Mr. Calida think he’s fooling?”

Senator Leila de Lima on Wednesday slammed Solicitor General Jose Calida for branding his quo warranto petition with the Supreme Court (SC) against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno as “an act of kindness to a fellow lawyer.”

Calida said that removing Sereno from the SC through  quo warranto proceedings, instead of a Senate impeachment trial, would save her the “indignity that the late Chief Justice Renato Corona suffered at the hands of politicians who unjustly convicted him.”

“This is not an ‘act of kindness.’  This is textbook political persecution, and attempt to rape, pillage and murder the Constitution—and the sovereign power of the Filipino people—right before our very eyes,” De Lima said in a statement inside her cell in the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center.

READ: Sereno ouster by peers rather than Senate ‘an act of kindness’—SolGen

Moreover, the senator said it was “improper and contemptuous” for the Solicitor General to degrade the Senate even before the impeachment trial began.

“It is precisely in furtherance of the right to due process and the rule of law that the impeachment court is created, as to afford our impeachable officials their day in court,” she said.

Calida’s statement also reeks of “historical revisionism and propaganda” as it suggests, without basis, that Corona’s removal as Chief Justice was an unjust act “at the hands of politicians,” the senator said.

“He was not just given his day in court, he was, in fact, ably defended by a stellar team of defense lawyers, led by no less than a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the late, great Serafin R. Cuevas,” she stressed.

“The trial was witnessed all over the world, after which then CJ Corona was convicted for a very specific and proven reason: for omitting substantial amounts of his wealth in his SALN,” she also said.

The senator noted that out of 23 Senators, 20 found him guilty—belonging to different political parties. Only 16 was needed for a conviction, she said.

“That is undisputable. To suggest otherwise is to peddle more lies and “alternative truths”, and is an even greater insult to the intellect of the Filipino people, who witnessed it all,” De Lima said.