SC justice ready to testify vs Sereno

A magistrate of the Supreme Court (SC) is willing to testify on the impeachment charges against Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno should the trial against her proceed.

The justice, who requested anonymity so as not to preempt the expected proceedings before Congress, cited several allegations in the impeachment complaint against Sereno that involve internal matters of the high court that only insiders would be able to attest to.

“If summoned by the impeachment court, we will be compelled to testify in the trial out of respect for the constitutional process,” the justice told

The STAR by phone. The magistrate would not reveal if the testimony will support or negate the allegations raised against Sereno.

But the justice stressed that any testimony would anyway undergo test of credibility dur- ing trial.

“I don’t have any ambition to replace her (Sereno) or any agenda,” the justice said.

Earlier this month, the SC allowed the release of court records and documents sought by groups seeking the ouster of Sereno to bolster the impeachment complaint against her before the House of Representatives.

All 14 other colleagues of Sereno in the high court voted unanimously to grant the request of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and the Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. (VPCI) for certified copies of several documents that will support their allegations against the Chief Justice.

Among the records ordered released to VACC and VPCI were the SC’s revocation of Sereno’s order in 2012 to reopen a regional constitutional administrative office (RCAO) in Cebu without the collegial approval of the Court.

The SC also granted the release of Sereno’s memorandum for appointment of lawyer Solomon Lumba as her staff head and the subsequent letter of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio withdrawing his signature from the appointment over an internal issue.

The VACC and VPCI alleged that Sereno violated the Constitution when she appointed Lumba, a professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law, when the law provides that appointive government officials shall not hold another public post unless otherwise specified.

But the high court rejected the request of the groups for release of the Memorandum of Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro questioning Sereno’s orders which lacked necessary approval of the collegial court as provided under the rules, including the appointment of a Philippine Judicial Academy (Philja) official.

The SC explained that such memorandum could not be released pending resolution from the Court.

De Castro’s internal memorandum, which was reported by The STAR earlier, specifically assailed the appointment of lawyer Brenda Jay Mendoza as Philja chief of office for the Philippine Mediation Center, which she said violated their Administrative Order No. 33-2008 that required the appointment for the post to be approved by the SC collegially.

De Castro also assailed Sereno’s grant of foreign travel allowance to members of her staff without required approval from the full court.

She bared that the Chief Justice’s staff members were being given travel allowances even when their trips abroad were on “official time,” which should not involve expenditure of public funds.

De Castro also questioned the “long delay” in the appointment in vacant key positions in SC pending before Sereno’s office, “which is prejudicial to the best interest of service.”

In their complaint, the VACC and VPCI accused Sereno of culpable violation of the Constitution by issuing an administrative order creating the new Judiciary Decentralized Office (JDO) and reopening the RCAO in Western Visayas in the absence of an authority from the Court.

They also raised the appointments of Lumba and Mendoza in the SC as basis.

The complaint also alleged that Sereno committed betrayal of public trust for sitting on the applications for the vacant posts in the Supreme Court.