MANILA – Four days after branding himself as her “enemy,” President Rodrigo Duterte called on Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to step down.
“Tama na iyan (That is enough). Give way. If I were you, I will resign,” Duterte said on Friday, asserting that Sereno should not have occupied the top judiciary post in the first place.
The public animosity between Duterte and Sereno started when the chief justice advised judges named on a list of drug suspects against going with police without an arrest warrant.
Now facing impeachment and quo warranto proceedings at the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, Sereno suspected that Duterte had a hand in the twin moves to oust her.
The House was filled with Duterte allies while Solicitor General Jose Calida, chief government lawyer and another ally of the President, file the petition for quo warranto.
Calling her “ignorante (ignorant)” and “bobo (dumb),” Duterte said Sereno should just quit because she was “just risking the country into a chaos.”
“Umalis ka na, at hindi ka dapat diyan in the first place. And that term of yours, until what, 2030? That’s too long for an ignorant chief justice,” said the President.
Moreover, Duterte said he would direct his PDP-Laban party-mates to impeach Sereno.
“So I’m asking my party-mates in Congress,” he said in reference to the House of Representatives. “Who am I to direct the Senate? Iyong Congress, ang ibigay sa representatives, because we were talking of impeachment, we are not talking of conviction.”
The House Committee on Justice approved the Articles of Impeachment against Sereno on March 8.
The House plenary voting on the impeachment complaint against Sereno will be held when Congress resumes sessions on May 14.
Before he went to China early this week to attend a forum, Duterte vowed to have Sereno removed from office after the latter challenged him to prove that he did not have a hand in the moves to unseat her.
Duterte said the chief justice should count him in as his “enemy” and asked the House to “fast-track” her impeachment.
SERENO SLAMS ‘ONE-MAN RULE’
In another speaking engagement on Thursday Sereno warned her fellow lawyers against allowing Duterte to rule over them.
“Are we afraid that we would be called names? Are we afraid that some of our clients might find themselves under harassment as well? This is not the time to keep your silence,” she told a fellowship meeting of the Philippine Bar Association in Makati City.
Forced to go on leave as she faces impeachment at the House of Representatives, Sereno has been accepting invitations to public events where she would speak about her present ordeals.
“It would be judicial harakiri – if not a judicial kamikaze – bringing with it the destruction of the entire judiciary, as well as the entire legal profession, where your fight against a one-man rule is already lost. One-man rule already is here,” said Sereno.
Sereno also criticized Duterte for asking the House to fast-track her impeachment after she asked her to explain why Calida was the one who initiated the quo warranto proceeding.
“You heard his answer. His answer betrays the entire story,” added the Chief Justice. “The solicitor general, who will be your adversary as counsel, will be able to file at any time a quo warranto petition against a judge at which both of you are appearing.”
“The dangers besetting us strike at the very root of our nation,” Sereno said. “If they succeed in removing an impeachable officer nearly six years after her appointment, then every sitting justice will no longer be independent.”/PN
