MANILA – The Department of Justice will transmit the graft charges filed against former Supreme Court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to the Office of the Ombudsman.
“The Office of the Ombudsman has primary jurisdiction over anti-graft and corruption cases, especially involving high-ranking government officials,” Justice secretary Menardo Guevarra said in a statement.
Guevarra said the charges will be forwarded as soon as possible, considering that the complaint was filed in January yet during the incumbency of Vitaliano Aguirre II as Justice secretary.
Lawyer Lorenzo Gadon first mentioned about the transmission.
The attorney accused Sereno of failing to file her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, or SALN, for 17 years when she was teaching law at the University of the Philippines.
Gadon also filed an impeachment complaint against Sereno before the House of Representatives for the same grounds.
Even before these could be resolved, majority of Supreme Court justices voted to remove Sereno as chief justice, in a historic decision that granted a petition for quo warranto filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida.
Meanwhile Gadon welcomed the Justice department’s decision to forward the graft complaint against Sereno to the Ombudsman.
In his statement the lawyer insisted that there was “failure to obey the law requiring all government employees to file SALN” on the part of Sereno.
“I filed it at the time when the respondent was still clothed with immunity from suits notwithstanding to avoid prescription of criminal acts as they were committed when Atty. Sereno was still teaching in a state university,” he added./PN
