Impeach the Chief Justice, here we go again

ABS-CBN's ANC yesterday morning had a live coverage of the impeachment hearing filed against Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. I was watching Committee on Justice Chairman Rey Umali read the charges against the Chief Justice, which took a long time. While listening to this, I felt a sense of déjà vu. So once again, the political circus in impeaching a sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court begins!

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno warned that the impeachment complaint against her was a threat to democracy. She believes that she is facing an impeachment because she criticized the anti-crime campaign of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte. Of course anyone can think that her impeachment complaint is just another way for the Duterte administration to persecute those who were appointed by the previous administration. But in fairness to the Chief Justice, Duterte stated a month ago that the Chief Justice will be impeached because of corruption. Prior to this impeachment in more than a year underDuterte only Sen. Leila de Lima was allegedly "persecuted" by this administration.

But whether she likes it or not, there are personalities who filedanimpeachmentcomplaintagainsther,whichshevehemently denied and said that these were fabricated. She also warned that the Judiciary was under threat if the Duterte government was going to pursue her impeachment case.

Just a little reminder to our readers, in December 12, 2011, 188 out of 284 members, the House of Representatives impeached the late Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona in just one hour! Call that hyper speed that the members of the House of Representatives impeached a sitting Chief Justice without even a hearing because his case was sent immediately to the plenary and decided instantly.

Hence using this example that happened seven years ago, you can say that Chief Justice Sereno is very lucky that her impeachment case is not being railroaded in the House of Representatives under the Duterte administration. In the case of CJ Corona, he was not even given a right to file an answer to his impeachment charge because it was railroaded. So let the impeachment proceedings move forward. At least from what I saw yesterday, CJ Sereno was given a fair hearing that was denied her predecessor the late CJ Corona.

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I'm sure that rabid Yellow blooded trolls are foaming in the mouth these days, cursing the Duterte administration for persecuting the previous administration under then presidentBenigno"Pnoy"Aquino III because former Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Manuel "Mar"Roxas II and eight other Cabinet secretaries of the Aquino administrationand21officersandprivateindividualswerecharged by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) with plunder and graft for their alleged roles in anomalous transactions related to the maintenance service contracts of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) system.

According to the DOTr, from 2012 to 2016 these DOTC officials entered into several contracts that led to the plunder of national government coffers and allowed some to enrich themselves. The DOTr also claimed that these acts are to blame for the problems being encountered by the rail system, including accidents, technical glitches and railway issues, among others.

Indeed, there is no denying that the Manila Rail Transit (MRT) has been breaking down since the time of then Aquino and continues to breakdown even up to today. Worse, DOTr Secretary Art Tugade is getting calls for his resignation for not being able to fix whatever is wrong with the MRT. In fairness to Tugade, he only inherited this problem from the previous DOTC officials whom he is filing a graft and corruption case today.

Also charged before the Office of the Ombudsman was formersecretariesJosephEmilioAbaya(transportation),Florencio Abad (budget), Cesar Purisima (finance), Jericho Petilla (energy), Mario Montejo (science), Voltaire Gazmin (defense), Rogelio Singson (public works) and Arsenio Balisacan (economic development).All the secretaries were named in the complaint for being members of the Government Procurement Policy Board.

In February 2013 the DOTC purchased 38 train cars for P3.769 billion which was awarded to the Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock, co. When the rail cars arrived, they were unusable as they were incompatible to our present rail system. So now, who should be accountable for this costly mistake? This is why the DOTr is now filing these charges against the previous officials.