Jeers and cheers
Expectedly, jeers and cheers greeted the decision of the Supreme Court ousting Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno by a vote of 8-6. And the noise is not expected to die down anytime soon.
Latest to join the fray in bashing the ouster decision was former chief justice Hilario Davide Jr. who said that the justices who voted against Sereno may be impeached. A majority in the Senate also passed a resolution urging the Supreme Court to review its decision. Sereno herself has asked President Rodrigo Duterte to resign for engineering the move to oust her.
Those who support the Quo Warranto 8, on the other hand, just as noisily proclaim that Sereno got her just dessert.
As in a basketball, the noise from the gallery will not add one point more to alter the outcome of the game. The final result will really depend on the individual players -- in this case, the 14 justices -- who are actually on the court.
Sen. Frank Drilon is first to acknowledge this. In so many words, Drilon says that the Senate has already expressed its sentiment on the matter. But if the majority of the Supreme Court ignores the Senate, there is nothing more the Senate can do.
As to the possibility of the Quo Warranto 8 being impeached, it is clear as day that any group contemplating this move would not even get to first base with the House Committee on Justice.
Sereno’s penultimate card is to file a motion for reconsideration as she and her counsel have previously announced. But this, I believe, will only be pro forma.
At the back of her own mind, Sereno feels that the fight at the Supreme Court is already lost. The battle lines have been so clearly drawn that to expect any justice (who voted against Sereno) to reconsider his/her vote would be a stretch.
Sereno’s last card? She is now exploring a different platform where she will try to seek vindication. This early, she is beginning to sound like Candidate Sereno (a publicist projected her as “Serene Sereno”) who is playing the underdog card.
Potential bar question
I am almost sure that the landmark Quo Warranto case will be one of the questions in Political Law during the forthcoming Bar Exams later this year. Bar reviewees would do well to really study this case.
If I were an examinee, I would quote the dissenting opinion of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. I believe it is the correct way of deciding the Sereno case. Carpio maintains that Sereno is guilty of not filing her SALNs for which she should be held accountable. But Sereno can only be removed via impeachment, not via a legal shortcut.
It is just too bad for Sereno that she failed to get the numbers to back her.
The importance of SALNs
Now we better appreciate how important it is for public servants -- high and low -- to file statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs). Failure to do so can have dire consequences.
My only question: who checks the figures reported by the SALN filers? I don’t know. But I have a suspicion that most SALNs are understated. And to me, the filing of an inaccurate SALN is no better than failure to do so.