Rody washes hands of CJ impeachment
The government’s chief lawyer filed the petition and his congressioanl allies are expected to vote for impeachment, but President Duterte maintained yesterday that he has nothing to do with efforts to unseat Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Duterte told a gathering of new anti-crime commission officials that
Sereno’s impeachment was up to Congress.
He issued the statement two days after Solicitor General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court (SC) for help in ousting its chief magistrate through a quo warranto petition questioning the validity of Sereno’s appointment.
As chief executive, Duterte said he acknowledges the independence of the legislature, a separate branch of the government.
“Congress, you be the judge. I cannot, I am part of the executive department. We are co-equal,” Duterte said.
In remarks at the oath taking of new officers of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission at Malacañang, Duterte said he merely called the attention of Sereno to what he called lapses in her discharge of duties.
“I never initiated (the case) on Sereno. I just called her attention because there were so many cases pending and she was flipflopping on her decisions – the very same complaints of the justice. Now it has come out,” Duterte said.
As this developed, members of the House of Representatives’ justice committee will decide today whether to dismiss the impeachment case or send it to the plenary for final approval of the chamber’s 292 members. Panel chairman Rep. Rey Umali of Oriental Mindoro will preside over the impeachment hearing.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez called the chief magistrate a “hypocrite” who engages in “double talk” to make it appear that she was not given the chance to rebut the impeachment charges against her.
“The House committee on justice gave her all the opportunity but she was so afraid to confront the truth. It’s hypocrisy – plain and simple,” Alvarez said.
“It’s all double talk. She’s saying one thing but doing another,” Umali said.
If she escapes impeachment, Sereno will step down in mid-2030 and her term shall have encompassed four presidents starting from Benigno Aquino III who appointed her, to incumbent President Duterte and two more leaders to be elected in 2022 and 2028.
Alvarez also insisted there is no conflict between the impeach- ment case and Calida’s quo warranto petition.
“The process of the quo warranto is different from the impeachment process so we in the House will just continue the process,” Alvarez told reporters.
He said he believes the petition has legal basis since it is questioning the validity of Sereno’s appointment in the first place.
“What is in the Constitution (removal by impeachment) assumes that the appointment was valid. What is being questioned here is the validity of the appointment itself,” Alvarez said.
When asked whether the petition could weaken the powers of Congress over impeachable officials, he said: “No, definitely not.”
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Sen. Francis Escudero, for their part, said the order of the SC for Sereno to answer Calida’s petition does not mean the high tribunal was already taking cognizance of the case.
He said he expects the SC to subject the case to oral arguments before it decides whether or not to take the case.
“If the Supreme Court, with its own wise judgment, says we have jurisdiction over the quo warranto and we believe that there is a basis to let the Chief Justice go, so the House of Representatives will not send us the articles of impeachment, so what will we (senators) do?” Drilon said.
Escudero said the order to Sereno was merely procedural on the part of the SC.
Votes not enough
But opposition congressmen said the Duterte administration does not have the votes in the Senate to convict her on impeachment charges.
This was the real reason why Calida filed a case with the Supreme Court questioning the validity of Sereno’s appointment, Ifugao Rep. Teodoro Baguilat Jr. said.
“Even without consummating Charter change, this administration is hell-bent on rewriting the Constitution by trying to remove the fiercely independent Chief Justice through unconstitutional means,” he said.
“Despite the administration’s multiple attacks on the CJ’s person, its kangaroo court in the House of Representatives committee on justice has not built up a credible case of impeachable offenses committed by CJ Sereno,” he said.
He added that the administration shifted their tack to Calida’s quo warranto case after surveying potential Senate votes for conviction and discovered that the votes are insufficient.
Under the Constitution, a two-thirds vote of all the members of the Senate is required to convict an impeachable official. That means that 16 of the 23 senators have to vote for conviction to oust Sereno in case the House impeaches her.
–