FATE questions Speaker’s motive for impeaching Sereno

MANILA, Philippines — An anti-corruption group yesterday expressed fear that the impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno could turn out to be a “kangaroo court” stemming from an allegedly insidious motive of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

The Filipino Alliance for Transparency and Empowerment (FATE) accused Alvarez of manipulating the results of the impeachment case against Sereno in the House of Representatives because in 2007, Sereno testified against Alvarez in a contract disadvantageous to the government.

FATE spokesperson Jo Perez cited recent public pronouncements of Alvarez, which suggested his supposed animosity toward Sereno.

“We have been monitoring the development and obviously an unseen hand is manipulating the outcome of the impeachment hearing... You can say that this is ginagapang (being scripted). This is lutong macao (a fixed game),” Perez stressed.

“It seems that his (Alvarez’s) investment in her impeachment is driven by something other than a desire to exact accountability. It seems that he is one of the people who stands to benefit from her impeachment,” the FATE officer added.?

The group also cited media reports quoting Alvarez as saying that the House could easily impeach Sereno as the majority has the numbers but would rather hear the charges against her instead of directly transmitting the complaint to the Senate.

FATE further alleged that Alvarez is driven by personal agenda in pushing for Sereno’s impeachment, particularly to seek revenge against her for previous testifying against him in the corruption charges when he was still transportation secretary at the time the mothballed Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 was built.

Alvarez was earlier charged with corruption and accused of profiting from the awarding of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract to Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc. (PIATCO).

The charges included under-the-table machinations, bloating the declared budget and “sub-sub-contracting” the construction firm owned by Alvarez’s wife.

The ombudsman, however, dismissed the plunder charges.

But a related case against Alvarez reached the Sandiganbayan where Sereno – in her capacity as the government’s co-counsel in the arbitration case involving expropriation of NAIA 3 – testified in 2007.

In her affidavit, Sereno said that the PIATCO contracts were “grossly disadvantageous to the government.” 

Recently, political expert Ramon Casiple shared the same opinion and said the filing of the impeachment against Sereno was motivated by vengeance on the part of Alvarez.  

The House committee on justice has already found the impeachment complaint against Sereno sufficient in form and substance.

The lawmakers will now proceed on the determination of probable cause of the charges against the Chief Justice.

In the complaint filed by lawyer Lorenzo Gadon, Sereno is accused of misdeclaration in her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth by hiding the P30 million she earned from the NAIA-3 case.

The other grounds for impeachment against Sereno include her supposed extravagant spending of judicial funds by purchasing a P5-million Toyota Land Cruiser and traveling on first-class flights and hotels.

Sereno is also accused of deliberately delaying the release of survivorship benefits of spouses of late justices and judges and the appointments in key vacancies in the judiciary to allow her staff to be qualified.

The complainant also cited as basis Sereno’s order in 2012 to reopen a regional constitutional administrative office in Cebu without collegial approval of the Court, which was later revoked by the SC.