Justice de Castro

After two days of hearing the impeachment complaint against Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, it now looks like only Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro can keep the flame of lawyer Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon’s allegations burning. Or at least the allegation that Sereno tampered with a temporary restraining order (TRO) that de castro recommended in 2013.

Gadon had claimed that Jomar Canlas, the Manila Times reporter who wrote the report titled “Justice blasts Sereno over TRO mess,” told him that de Castro confirmed the story. In yesterday’s hearing of the committee on justice of the House of Representatives, Canlas denied Gadon’s statement.

“I hereby deny that I have intimated to Atty. Gadon that the source of facts in my article was Supreme Court Associate Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-de Castro. I have never revealed to anyone my source or sources, who suffice it to say, are reliable and well-placed sources,” Canlas said. While the reporter claimed his source was reliable, the report obviously cannot stand on its own.

Gadon, when questioned about it, said he could no longer say with certainty whether Canlas told him about the matter in their talks. Which brings us to his other claim, that de Castro was willing to attend the congressional hearings and would confirm his allegations against Sereno.

But will de Castro attend the hearing and go after a colleague like what Gadon claimed? De Castro has already denied that he talked about the TRO issue with Canlas or anybody else. But she has been silent on Gadon’s insistence that she is willing to testify in the congressional inquiry—which could be a signal that she indeed would like to say her piece in the inquiry.

Interestingly, that issue happened in 2013, or a few months after then president Benigno Aquino III appointed Sereno chief justice over senior associate justices like Antonio Carpio and even de Castro. Reports that emanated from the High Court At that time said that the relation among the justices got frayed and that there was resistance to her assuming the post. Canlas’s report did describe the toxic setup in the SC then.

But that was already five years past and it seems like the other justices have learned to live with Sereno at the helm. We will know if de Castro also learned to live with Sereno by the way he would answer the questions of the lawmakers, that is if she decides to attend the hearing.

As for the Sereno camp, I think they should allow the House committee on justice to do its thing. While I feel like there is an attempt there to railroad the proceedings, I also feel that we won’t know for certain if that hunch is true if we continuously snipe the lawmakers from the outside. I have seen the proceedings on-and-off and did see some committee members who are trying to be objective in their appraisal of the substance of Gadon’s complaint.

In the end, though, it will be the Senate acting as an impeachment court that would decide on Sereno’s fate—that is if the House decides to really railroad Sereno’s impeachment. Meaning that, the House is really not the end of Sereno’s saga. There’s still a long way to go from here.