Category: supreme court

sneaky snaky snarky supremes

surely, the ouster of cj sereno by fellow supremes who hate her is not good for country.  legal circles are aghast.  too many laws  defied, broken, re-interpreted.  it is all so destabilizing.  surely there is some other way of dealing with the problem.  surely a senate impeachment trial is the wiser option, let the chips fall where they may.

the original sin was pNoy’s, appointing one so young and so junior.  ang daming nilampasan, in-overtake.  kumbaga sa traffic, daig pa ni sereno ang naka-wangwang, tabi lahat ng nakapilang senior associate justices na mga next-in-line for the cj post.  at least in cj corona’s case, isa lang ang nilakdawan, ibig sabihin tipong senior na rin, may karapatan na rin si corona, besides being president gloria’s former chief of staff, or something like that.

anyway.  the original sin was pNoy’s, the mortal sin was sereno’s, for accepting the appointment.  surely she knew that she would be met with hostility, but perhaps she believed that mar roxas would succeed pNoy and then maybe leni would succeed mar, soon enough the hostile ones would have retired and LP-friendly ones appointed, and then it would all be a breeze to the end of her term.

but mar lost.  ka-DDS na ang majority supremes.  and duterte has spoken: sereno must go.  and so the house of reps got moving and built a case with the help of some five supremes, no less, and the senate has been waiting.  BUT BUT BUT what happened nga ba?

the cardinal sin was solgen calida’s.  why did he have to butt in with the quo warranto?  mahina kasi ang kaso ng house of reps?  tama ba si senator ping lacson?

PING LACSON @iampinglacson 6 hours
Ang biggest ‘winners’ sa SC decision ay ang mga abogadong pulpol na handa sanang magkalat na katangahan sa impeachment trials na hindi na mangyayari dahil malamang hindi na ipadala ng House ang Articles of Impeachment sa Senado.
11 May 2018
580 Retweets 1.4K Likes

more seriously, senate president koko pimentel is calling for the RULE OF LAW.

The Supreme Court is supreme in a lot of things but not in everything. In impeachment matters the Supreme  Court is not supreme, because the Senate is the one and only impeachment court. The Chief Justice an “impeachable official” who can be removed only after impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.  The reputation and esteem of this present Supreme Court will now rise or fall on the basis of the soundness or unsoundness of the this controversial decision upholding a very unusual remedy to oust a sitting Chief Justice.  Let us all uphold the RULE OF LAW. The people must be given time to reiview this decision.  And the Supreme Court itself must also take the time to review its own decision.  If the supreme court is not supreme in everything then it is also not infallible in everything.  The respondent Chief Justice must be given the opportunity to file a Motion for Reconsideration.  God bless our beloved country.

if sereno is not impeached by the senate, the supremes, of course, will be no less hostile, the situation no less untenable.  sereno may have to exit the scene anyway, to keep her sanity.  but let her cross that bridge when / if she gets there.

meanwhile, here’s praying that the supremes (even just one or two? three?) graciously change their minds about the quo warranto, and soon.  if only to shut sereno up, LOL.  her media blitz is quite effective, the message quite arresting, even exciting, particularly the call for a national conversation (!) on everything that’s wrong with filipino society, before it’s too late.

the lady is hitting the ground running.  maybe there’s hope.

marvic leonen: quo warranto “a legal abomination”

I DISSENT.

This Petition should have been dismissed outright and not given due course. It does not deserve space in judicial deliberation within our constitutional democratic space. Even if the Chief Justice has failed our expectations, quo warranto, as a process to oust an impeachable officer and a sitting member of the Supreme Court, is a legal abomination. It creates a precedent that gravely diminishes judicial independence and threatens the ability of this Court to assert the fundamental rights of our people. We render this Court subservient to an aggressive Solicitor General. We render those who present dissenting opinions unnecessarily vulnerable to powerful interests.

Granting this Petition installs doctrine that further empowers the privileged, the powerful, and the status quo.

A better reading of the Constitution requires us to read words and phrases in the context of the entire legal document. Thus, the general grant of original jurisdiction for quo warranto actions to this Court in Article VIII, Section 5(1) should be read in the context of the provisions of Article XI, Sections 2 and 3 , as well as the principles of judicial independence and integrity inherent in a constitutional order implied in Article VIII, Sections 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 of the Constitution.” G.R. 237428, Republic v Sereno, Leonen J. dissenting.

sereno and the supremes, pNoy and dengvaxia

whew, what a week, and it’s only wednesday.

on tuesday came the oral arguments sa supreme court on the quo warranto case vs cj sereno (tuesday) that certainly had the makings of a drawn-out catfight between associate justice teresita de castro and the embattled CJ, but cooler heads prevailed, shucks.  seriously though, i pray that similar cool prevails when the time comes to rule on the quo warranto.

no matter what the solgen-who-has-never-lost-a-case says, it is not for the supremes to kick out the chief: it would be so unethical, it would be disgraceful, it would be unjust, and it would be undignified, to be so obviously pandering to self- and vested interests: there would be nowhere (for the justice system) to go but down.  the only way the supremes can come out of this smelling like roses would be if if they were gracious enough to give sereno her day in court, the senate impeachment court.

the very next day, wednesday, nambulaga naman si senator dick gordon with the blue ribbon committee’s final report on the dengvaxia mess that finds pNoy,  ex-dbm sec butch abad, and ex-doh sec janet garin guilty of malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance  …

Malfeasance is an affirmative act that is illegal or wrongful. In tort law it is distinct from misfeasance, which is an act that is not illegal but is improperly performed. It is also distinct from Nonfeasance, which is a failure to act that results in injury.

nakakaloka.  in other words

The Senate Blue Ribbon committee, in its report, found that the Dengvaxia program was implemented with “undue haste” by Aquino, former Health Secretary Janette Garin, and former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad.

“Aquino, Garin, Abad and other officials are primary conspirators and must be held criminally liable… and must be prosecuted for all the tragedy, damage and possible deaths resulting from the Dengvaxia mass vaccination program,” Gordon said in a press conference.

parang kinakarma nang todo si pNoy.  malinaw by now that it was a very bad idea appointing such a young chief justice.  malinaw din na it was a very bad idea rushing the dengvaxia purchase and mass vaccination.

hard not to wonder why such mistakes were made in the first place, mistakes that could have been avoided.  one theory is that they were so sure mar roxas would be pNoy’s successor, as in, six more years, and sereno and the supremes would have had their backs?  well, karma’s a bitch, someone tell the duterte admin.

‘Miraculous resurrection of the dead,’ says Leonen of SC decision on PAL

The Supreme Court’s decision declaring as legal the retrenchment of some 1,400 flight attendants and stewards of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) in 1998 “involves the miraculous resurrection of the dead,” Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said in his dissenting opinion.  Read on…