(The Chief Justice takes her case for democracy before Central Luzon lawyers. Photo by Bong Lacson)
CLARK FREEPORT – The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday lambasted the quo warranto petition fi led against her in a keynote speech at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Central Luzon Regional Convention and Mandatory Continuing Legal Education held at the Quest Hotel being held here here May 2-5.
“Ano po ang tawag sa kondisyon na ang citizen walang kalaban- laban sa gobyerno (What do you call a condition where the citizen has no way to fight the government)?” Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno asked. “Ang tawag po doon dictatorship, hindi po constitutional democracy ang tawag doon (You call that dictatorship, that is not what you call a constitutional democracy),” she said.
“That is what is going to happen if the quo waranto petition is granted,” she lamented. “That is why I have been demanding that the impeachment complaint be forwarded to the Senate because I want to tell a story to the people. Not my personal story but the story of judicial and legal reforms.”
“But it seems they don’t like it that is why they invented a very gloomy weapon in the form of the quo warranto petition,” she said.
“The booming voice of Justice Vicente Mendoza has reverberated that if the quo waranto petition is granted, the judiciary will destroy itself,” said Sereno as she also praised the IBP’s stand to oppose and dismiss the petition.
Sereno said her words are clear. If she gets convicted in the impeachment trial, she will step down.
“Hindi ako magdadalawang salita ukol dito kasi yun po ang proseso ng Constitution (I will not make any conflicting statements on this because that is the Constitutional process,” she said.
Sereno said as long as it is constitutional she will follow. She said she is not afraid to face the charges in the Senate even if they will scrutinize how she runs the SC. But she complained that it is not only how she runs the SC that is being probed but what she had done and failed to do 30 years ago.
“That is why I am saying that this quo warranto petition is deadly not only to the judiciary but to every impeachable official because anytime they can be compromised,” she said.
“The decision of the chairman of the Comelec or the Commission on Audit (COA), two powerful positions that can determine our political future, and the accountability in the public coffers, can also be swayed with just a word from the Solicitor General or from the Office of the President because they will be threatened with a quo warranto petition,” she explained.
“What will happen to the accountability to our people? Will COA still be adamant in their report? Will the Comelec still be fair with its decision? What will happen to our motherland?”
Sereno said the government is indeed a very difficult opponent.
Public officials as well as the more than one million government employees nationwide can be removed any time because they can be subjected to a quo waranto petition.
“So, what will happen if there is no longer a professional bureaucracy and everyone’s security of tenure in the government is unsure? What do you call that?” she asked.
“That’s dictatorship. That’s the destruction of professional government service. That is the destruction of the merit based civil service system,” she said.
Sereno told the lawyers’ convention that their legal profession will no longer be considered a profession but reduced to mere “pro forma appearance” for their clients.
She told the lawyers that they will no longer be needing fairness or due process as well as the rules of court compliance and the law because it will be replaced with, “who knows the Solicitor General?”
What you will need then will be a deft political negotiation with the powers that be, she said.
