When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
So goodbye yellow brick road
where the dogs of society howl
What do you think you’ll do then?
Maybe you’ll get a replacement
there’s plenty like you to be found…
– Elton John/Bernie Taupin
TODAY, May 11, the Supreme Court decides or has decided on the quo warranto case filed against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and if it happens as expected based on the strong indications and unofficial leaks, then Sereno is out. She’s no longer the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Of course, moi could be wrong as this is the Philippines and stranger things have happened.
As per the unofficial information coming out from the Supreme Court, of the 15 member justices it’s a toss- up between 13 or 11 votes for the quo warranto or against Sereno staying a second longer as Chief Justice.
For the uninitiated or the idiots seeing the world through yellow-colored glasses: A quo warranto is a special form of legal action used to resolve a dispute over whether a specific person has the legal right to hold the public office that he or she occupies.
And based on the most basic of the requirements for one to become Chief Justice, Sereno failed the psychological testing and filing of her SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth), meaning she is not supposed to be there in the first place as she is grossly unqualified. Never mind that she is a mediocre legal academic who has never seen the insides of a courtroom as a trial lawyer nor ever defended a client in a courtroom.
But then again this is the Philippines as I said stranger things have happened i.e. the person who appointed her as Chief Justice, Noynoy Aquino, became President not because he is a great leader but because his mother died. Noynoy Aquino has never worked all his adult life and was a congressman for nine years and senator for three years without passing a single bill.
Hopefully, as you read this column, Maria Lourdes Sereno would have been booted out of the Supreme Court and replaced with someone qualified and not an embarrassment to the courts, the legal profession and the country.
And as Solicitor General Jose Calida said, his quo warranto case against Sereno is already an “act of kindness” as she will be judged by her “peers” and not by politicians.
But after the smoke clears and Sereno is still the Chief Justice there’s always the impeachment waiting for her and that will not only put her in trial but the senators themselves sitting as judges when the Senate convenes as an impeachment court.
Moi will just park these immortal words of Sen. Franklin Drilon when he voted guilty then Chief Justice the late Renato Corona during the latter’s impeachment at the Senate: The Supreme Court dismissed Delsa Flores, a lowly court interpreter, for not reporting in her SALN her stall in a public market. The chief justice must be held to a much higher standard. Those who dispense justice must conform to the highest standards of professional integrity and personal honesty.
Most notable in the Maria Lourdes Sereno peep show are the presence of the usual suspects i.e. Robert Reyes, that self-proclaimed “running priest”, the “Sister Stella L” wannabe Sister Mary John Mananzan, and lately presumptive Vice President Leni Robredo.
These two religious characters plus other priests have been giving Maria Lourdes Sereno and Leni Robredo an overdose of “pray overs” that they may actually overshoot heaven.
It is not surprising but actually expected that these characters will jump in the Maria Lourdes Sereno and Leni Robredo peep shows.
This, however, is something else: Excerpts from the May 9 Manila Times column of Roberto Tiglao:
THE only thing that could rival the abomination of Ma. Lourdes Sereno’s clinging to her post as Chief Justice – despite her utter lack of qualifications, even the legal requirements for it – is the support for her mainly by the Yellows and the Reds, expressed in a full-page, two-page-long statement published in several broadsheets over the past few days.
That such ads are expensive, P500,000, bolsters the report I’ve received that a Spanish-descended tycoon has been funding — spending P50 million so far — the massive PR campaign to keep Sereno at her post.
The signatories practically make up a roster of the people united solely in their hate for President Duterte, and of the gullible easily recruited by demagogues to join a cause that they think would give meaning to their silly, little lives.
The most disgusting thing about this statement is that leftists – actually Communist Party cadres – like Bayan Muna current and former representatives Carlos Zarate, Neri Colmenares and Teddy Casiño as well as former high-ranking party official and Duterte’s former social welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo, are among the signatories.
Don’t they know that Sereno was appointed to the Supreme Court by former President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino 3rd, almost entirely in order to defend his clan’s interests in Hacienda Luisita?
Have they forgotten that at least 12 of their comrades were brutally killed in the so-called Hacienda Luisita massacre of 2004, fighting to have the plantation placed under land reform?
Why the leftists or even the clerics would, supposedly devoted to the poor’s welfare, now support Sereno who was an oligarchic clan’s champion in the court? Because they really have lost all the noble principles they claim to be fighting for, and will join any cabal that intends to remove Duterte.
As that demi-god of the New People’s Army and all the pseudo-communists, Joma Sison said in a TV interview: “Si Sereno muchacha ni Aquino ‘yan.” (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
