Speaker Gloria Arroyo wants speedy impeachment case vs SC justices

MANILA, Philippines — The leadership of the House of Representatives is treating the move of opposition lawmakers to impeach seven Supreme Court justices with urgency.

The impeachment case against the seven will start moving immediately upon the resumption of session of Congress on Tuesday after a 12-day recess.

“The most important thing is to expedite it one way or another so that it does not really disturb the legislative agenda,” Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told reporters yesterday in Pampanga where she distributed relief goods to Aetas in Porac town.

She said her office has received the complaint filed by opposition lawmakers belonging to the so-called Magnificent 7 group of Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman.

“I checked with the secretary-general this morning on my way here (Pampanga). He has already transmitted the impeachment charge to my office, and then they will send me the transmittal for my signature later so that I can transmit it also today to the rules committee,” she said.

She said the rules committee would include it in the House order of business (OB) at the resumption of session “so it could be read out.”

Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr., who chairs the rules committee, said the impeachment complaint would be referred to the committee on justice on Tuesday.

The process the ouster case against the seven justices will take will be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, in the history of the House.

Under the impeachment rules of the chamber, the Speaker has 10 session days to send a valid complaint to the committee on rules, which in turn is given three session days to include it in the OB so it could be transmitted to the committee on justice. All that is happening on Tuesday.

The committee on justice has 60 session days to dispose of a complaint and submit its report to the House.

Facing impeachment are Justices Teresita de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Andres Reyes, Francis Jardeleza, Noel Tijam and Alexander Gesmundo. The seven voted for the ouster of former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno by favoring the quo warranto case filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida, who had questioned Sereno’s qualifications.

Lagman’s opposition colleagues Teodoro Baguilat Jr. of Ifugao, Gary Alejano of party-list Magdalo and Tom Villarin of Akbayan joined him in filing the complaint.

They accused the seven justices of “culpable violation of the Constitution” and “betrayal of public trust.”

“They are fully aware that impeachment is the only mode or process of removing impeachable officials, like the chief justice, which is buttressed by the wealth of relevant jurisprudence of no less than the high court and the pertinent deliberations in the Constitutional Commission (Con-Com) on the same issue,” Lagman said.

Confusion over ‘may’

He said the eight justices who voted to oust Sereno misinterpreted the provision of the Constitution that provides that impeachable officers like the chief justice “may be removed through impeachment.”

Lagman stressed that the eight wrongly “construed the word ‘may’ as suggesting the availability of other options (of removal)” and therefore “violated the unmistakable context and intent of the Constitution.”

According to members of the 1986 Con-Com that wrote the present Charter, they used the word “may” in the impeachment provision to allow for the possibility that an impeachable official may not be convicted in his Senate impeachment trial.

If the word “shall” were used, an impeachment process should always result in a conviction, they said.

They said the  “may” should not be interpreted as providing for another means of ousting an impeachable officer, since it is clear in the Constitution that such officials could be removed only through the impeachment process.

Lagman said De Castro, Peralta, Bersamin, Tijam and Jardeleza “betrayed public trust by refusing to inhibit themselves in the adjudication of the Calida quo warranto petition despite their patent and continuing ill will, bias and prejudice against Sereno as shown by their respective testimonies before the House committee on justice and their statements during the oral arguments in the quo warranto case.”

“Unethical ulterior motives induced Justices De Castro, Peralta and Bersamin to oust Sereno. With the removal of Sereno, a vacancy was created in the position of chief justice. These justices were expected to vie for said position as in fact they are,” he said.

He urged the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to disqualify the four, since they are facing an impeachment case, which he said is more serious than an administrative complaint.

Under JBC rules, a nominee should not have a pending criminal or administrative case.

Former associate justice Samuel Martires was not included in the impeachment complaint because he has already been appointed ombudsman. 

No more quo warranto

Meanwhile, Baguilat said his “primary reason” for joining the impeachment initiative against the justices is to “ensure a quo warranto is not resorted to in removing officials who clearly can only be removed legitimately through impeachment.” The seven justices, he said,  “must be taken to task for ousting the former chief justice through the questionable route of quo warranto.”

He maintained the magistrates used the quo warranto as “legal tool to wage their personal vendetta” against Sereno.

“If we don’t strive to stop them now, it will happen again,” he added.

“Some of these honorable justices even used their esteemed positions to vent personal grudges. They admitted as much during the oral arguments for the quo warranto case. Some even presented themselves as being worthy of the position of chief judge of the country, despite demonstrating that they cannot separate personal concerns from their judicial duties,” Baguilat pointed out.

For Calida, the author of the quo warranto petition that sealed Sereno’s fate, the impeachment complaint “will not see the light of day.”

“If the opposition legislators’ logic will be followed, then all justices, whose constitutional interpretation differ from them, can be impeached. Worst, following also this logic, justices who dissented from the majority view in constitutional cases, can also be impeached. This will reduce impeachment to a mere vengeance mechanism, far from which it is intended for,” Calida said in a statement.

“Thus, when justices vote on an issue like the quo warranto case based on their interpretation of the Constitution, they are merely performing their constitutional duty. And in doing so, it cannot be said that they committed culpable violation of the Constitution,” he added. – With Evelyn Macairan, Artemio Dumlao