Maria Lourdes Sereno: Exemplar of imprudence, not jurisprudence

Blinking eyes, lame arguments

Knowing how her eyelids blink or twitch non-stop under stress and how BBC’s Stephen Sackur can be tough with his questioning, why did Ms Sereno seek the interview with Sackur on HARDtalk, which was strikingly aired last Tuesday, Independence Day?

Was this Sereno’s way of underlining the alleged assault on judicial independence by President Duterte

The thing about the non-stop blinking eyelids is that they are riveting; you remember them more than the elaborate arguments Sereno laid out as the reasons for her ouster or restoration as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Watching the interview ( it is readily available on YouTube) is punishing. While you marvel at Sackur’s dexterity and preparedness in questioning Sereno, you cringe at her responses and selfserving explanations, and her vain effort to divert the interview to an area favorable to her cause.

Nothing in what Sereno said in the interview showed deep understanding of constitutional government, rule of law and democracy in the Philippines. She had none of the feminine charm and sophistication that accomplished Filipino women effortlessly show an interviewer or inquisitor.

She does not know the difference in responsibility and duty between an appointed judge and

- gedly dramatizes herself as a victim of an undemocratic system.

When told that her criticism of Duterte’s policies is meddling in partisan politics and is highly irregular for a chief justice, she was the picture of puzzlement. When asked directly whether she

she flatly denied any political ambition. She speaks in many forums because she must speak for all the people who come to her clamoring for justice.

Sereno’s HARDtalk interview scored no points for her and the opposition. Duterte probably have become harder to topple after being described by Sackur as “extraordinarily effective.”

Dustbin of history

Noting the poor prospects of an SC reversal of its decision, I can understand why some say that Sereno will be swept into the “dustbin of history.”

The expression is a catch- all dismissal of the riffraff and mediocrities of public life. ing column in the traced the origins and variations of the term “dustbin of history.”

The phrase was popularized by Trotsky, who told the Mensheviks departing from the 1917 Congress of Soviets, ‘’Go to the place where you belong from now on—the dustbin of history!’’

In the English edition of Trotsky’s autobiography, Trotsky is quoted as saying of the faction opposing the Bolsheviks, ‘’They are just so much refuse which will be swept into the garbage heap of history.’’

Speaking in London decades later, President Ronald Reagan disclosed his belief that ‘’ the march of freedom and democracy…will leave Marxist Leninism on the ash heap of history.’’

Which kind of heap will history offer Maria Lourdes Sereno?

Contribution to jurisprudence

- Logically, Sereno should be remembered for her work in our jurisprudence and her magistracy. But there is little in the record to bear the weight of these big words.

She was appointed by her classmate President Benigno Aquino 3rd in August 2010 as associate justice of the Supreme Court despite her total lack of judicial experience. Two years later, in August 2012, by reason of that appointment, Aquino considered her

new chief justice of the SC.

As associate justice and then chief justice, Sereno tried to look busy- busy. She took part diligently in the great decisions the court had to make on major questions in our public life. She wrote ponencias, as well as dissenting or concurring opinions. It’s notable that she or her staff of lawyers invariably wrote the longest opinions among the justices whenever she went into the records.

Court observers say that her most eye-catching contributions to jurisprudence were in the following:

1. The Hacienda Luisita case wherein she argued for the payment to the Cojuangco clan by the government of over P10 billion for the land that the court had already ruled for distribution among the workers in the hacienda and their families. Some say this was the principal reason why Aquino appointed her to the court—to lawyer for the clan from inside the SC.

2. The Grace Poe citizenship

she took the lead in steering the court toward a decision pronouncing Poe a citizen of the Philippines under the terms of the 1935 Constitution because she is a foundling. There ensued a running debate between Sereno and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on whether the court had effectively declared Grace Poe a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.

3. The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement ( EDCA) case, wherein CJ Sereno wrote the ponencia, which ruled that the Aquino administration could implement EDCA as an executive agreement, that EDCA only implements the terms of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines and the United States and the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the US, and that the Philippines could again allow the US to establish military bases in the country under a modernized form.

Record of imprudence

I submit, however, that Sereno will enter the nation’s memory bank not for jurisprudence, but for the imprudence of her appointment to the court by President Aquino, and her tenacity to cling to the post of chief justice even when the high court already ruled her appointment void.

It was imprudent for Sereno to accept her appointment as associate justice when she did not possess the

It was even more imprudent for Sereno to accept appointment as chief justice over the heads of justices vastly more senior and experienced than her.

In jurisprudence there is a violation or wrong called “reckless imprudence.” It is sometimes also referred to as “criminal stupidity.”

The entire article in the Penal Code does not make for easy reading because it refers to any act, which if intentional, would qualify as a certain criminal charge.

This is why reckless imprudence

that take lives or cause grave injuries.

How about the dreadful consequences for the nation of a misguided appointment of an un

- tice or chief justice of the Supreme Court? Isn’t that also imprudent, and arguably more catastrophic?

The

defines imprudent as “unwise, failing to consider the likely results of your actions.”

The Central Bank rebukes banks for imprudence in their lending. Presidents should be chastised even more for their misguided appointments.