More useful and necessary

Under Article XI of the Philippine Constitution, “The President, the Vice President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office by impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust” (Section 2).

Their removal from office on those grounds is based on the principle that “Public Office is a public trust” and they “must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives” (Section 1).

It is supposedly on the basis of these constitutional provisions, that a case of impeachment has been initiated in the House of Representatives against Supreme Court Chief Justice (CJ) Maria Lourdes Sereno on complaint of a citizen endorsed by 25 Congressmen belonging to the “super majority” of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Specifically, CJ Sereno has been charged with culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and corruption. Currently on-going is the hearing by the justice committee of the Lower House to determine probable cause on why the CJ is blamable for violating the Constitution, after the Lower House itself has ruled that the complaint is “sufficient in form and substance.”

People who have been closely following the proceedings in the Lower House cannot help but notice and conclude that the impeachment complaint against the CJ is being railroaded by the super majority by using their sheer force of numbers rather than by relying on the merits of the case. Obviously, this administration would like to get rid of Sereno because of her adverse stand on several constitutional issues involving its numerous actions through this impeachment complaint which is apparently without bases and devoid of merit.

In the first place, it has been clearly established and openly admitted by the private complainant himself, that he has no personal knowledge and information as to the truth of the allegations of his complaint; that said allegations are merely based on news reports of some journalist regarding the assertion made by another Supreme Court Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro. Since the complaint is not based on the personal knowledge and information of the complainant, the Lower House should have peremptorily dismissed it for being insufficient in form and substance.

Instead of outrightly dismissing the impeachment case however, the Lower House still proceeded to hear the complaint supposedly to determine probable cause by calling on the Supreme Court Justice and other members of the Supreme Court who have personal knowledge or information about the allegations in the complaint. The serious flaw here is that the Justice Committee is just using the person/s allegedly having personal knowledge and information of the charges merely as witnesses when they should have been the complainant themselves. In short, the Lower House Justice Committee is relying on a defective complaint to go on with the impeachment process. Such action itself may be considered as a culpable violation of the Constitution!

But the worst part here is that the alleged culpable violation being attributed to the CJ is not actually a violation of the Constitution but of the internal rules of procedure in the Supreme Court. Sereno allegedly issued an Administrative Order (No 175-2012) ordering the creation of a Regional Court Administrative Office in Region 7, in clear disregard and without the approval of her colleagues as required by their internal rules. This move of the Lower House Justice Committee is definitely interfering and looking into the internal rules of a co-equal Branch of the government and thus violates the principle of separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution.

Also quite obvious is the fact that the ground for impeachment against the CJ merely involves differing personal points of view of Supreme Court Justices on the internal rules of procedure of the Chamber. It has nothing to do at all with a culpable violation of the fundamental law of the land or disregard and grave abuse of public trust reposed on public officials.

So the Lower House Justice Committee should discontinue its long drawn out hearings full of hot air and grandstanding on this impeachment complaint and just dismiss the same right away. Such hearings are just a waste of time and of the peoples’ money to advance their own political agenda.

It would be more useful and necessary for Congress to instead act as a Constituent Assembly and propose amendments to our Constitution particularly the change in the form of government from the existing Unitary Presidential system into Federalism. The contour and composition of our country clearly necessitate a change in our system of government. Instead of over concentration of power in “Imperial Manila” under a powerful Chief Executive, the functions of government must be decentralized and its revenues and resources, equally distributed and shared by autonomous governments with more compact and smaller areas. One of the biggest advantages of this Federal form of government is that the exercise of powers will be more wieldy and controllable and the revenues will be better utilized. In fact even the maintenance of peace and order as well as the fight against corruption will be more effective. So the Federal States will become more progressive and peaceful. This is already proven in such countries under a federal form of government like Germany and the USA.

Of course in amending our Charter, the framers should also ensure that there will be no abuse of power by the federal leaders especially the proliferation of political dynasties that will perpetuate themselves in office by converting their States into fiefdoms. There must be sufficient and adequate provisions in the new Charter that will prevent such kind of fiefdoms in the proposed Federal Government. Such amendments will even enable President Duterte to fulfill his promise to resign as President.

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