CJ Sereno, SC execs snub House probe on JDF

MANILA, Philippines — Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and other Supreme Court officials on Tuesday snubbed the House of Representatives' investigation on the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF).

Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., chairman of the House Committee on Justice, invited to Sereno, the high court's deputy court administrators, finance officers and auditors to the hearing on what administration allies call the judiciary's pork barrel.

Sereno, through a representative who read her statement before the panel, called the invitation as the head of a co-equal branch of government "inappropriate" and "premature" at the initial stage of the probe.

Sereno said the Supreme Court should not sacrifice judicial independence and fiscal autonomy in its participation in the probe, which is yet to be decided by the associate justices. She also said the invitation was done on short notice.

Read related: Sereno unlikely to attend House JDF probe

The hearing looks into the validity of calls to abolish the JDF, created through Presidential Decree 1949. The inquiry follows the Supreme Court's decision to scrap congressional pork barrel funds amid the embezzlement scandal.

Tupas said in a radio report that the Supreme Court's inputs and explanations are needed in the probe on the P38 billion unused savings under the JDF. - reports from Edu Punay and Camille Diola