MANILA – The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) said it is not receiving allowances from Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and the Supreme Court.
In a statement, IBP denied the allegation of lawyer Lorenzo Gadon who filed an impeachment complaint against Sereno.
“The President, Executive Vice President, the members of the Board of Governors, all Chapter and Regional Officers of IBP do not receive any allowance from Chief Justice Sereno or the Supreme Court,” stressed the IBP.
These elected officials of the IBP in fact serve without any compensation or honorarium, it added.
“It is reckless for a lawyer to make false and unfounded allegations,” according to the IBP.
The group stressed: “We respect every person’s freedom of expression and may even try to understand his needs and motivations but truth, fairness and professional ethics should not be lost even in partisan and passionate lawyering.”
Gadon, who faces four disbarment complaints, accused IBP of siding with Sereno and the Supreme Court after the group sought to intervene in the quo warranto case that wants Sereno’s appointment as chief justice invalidated so they could formally oppose it.
The IBP filed the intervention on the ground that the petition for quo warranto of Solicitor General Jose Calida “will impair the security of tenure, stability and independence of constitutional offices.”
It has also argued that the quo warranto plea was filed beyond the one-year prescriptive period, and that the Supreme Court should not replace the Judicial and Bar Council and the President in determining whether or not Sereno possesses integrity, a “qualification” Calida alleges she does not.
“The members of the IBP Board of Governors may have diverse political inclinations and beliefs but we are one in taking this principled stand for it is the institutional duty of IBP and the personal oath of every lawyer to uphold the Constitution and promote the rule of law, regardless of the personalities involved,” the IBP said./PN
