CJ Corona vs CJ Sereno: A sharp contrast

It was a historic Friday when the Supreme Court (SC) ousted its own Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno in a quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida. Sereno came into the limelight with so much history behind her, taking over the position of Chief Justice from the convicted CJ Renato Corona to become the first woman Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Now she becomes legal history being ousted via a quo warranto proceeding rather than through an impeachment process.

As expected, the folks who believed that the removal of impeachable persons through the impeachment process is vested only in the Philippine Senate are not happy with the SC decision. However, I find it eerily strange that Ma. Lourdes Sereno didn’t come out of this legal decision, miserably sad, dejected, unhappy or even crestfallen?

Instead, Ma. Lourdes Sereno immediately called a presscon, which was covered on nationwide TV and appeared victorious, smiling and declared that it was a “moral victory”! Her yellow followers even declared, “Democracy was dead!” Thanks to Social Media, everyone has become a constitutionalist believing that their respective opinions would sway the whole nation to look at their way of thinking.

Hence, we ask, if democracy was dead didn’t we just hold the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections yesterday? I voted at the Cebu Normal University (CNU) with my neighbors in our barangay and clearly, we still have a vibrant democracy! This is the problem with freedom of speech, anyone can sell his opinions regardless of how illogical they can be and we can only thank the current reality happening in our country today… that we still live by the very democratic principles that ensure our freedom of speech.

At this point, I would like to believe that a great majority of the supporters of Ma. Lourdes Sereno, even if they are legal luminaries just cannot accept the reality that the SC just allowed quo warranto proceedings to remove an impeachable officer. When the Supreme Court literally makes its own constitutional ruling, it is because they have become an activist court!

But in fairness to the SC, last Sunday night, I decided to go to the SC website and read the entire 153-page ponencia of Associate Justice Noel Tijam, which is now a landmark SC decision… that in ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s case, the quo warranto is superior to an impeachment case. Henceforth, thanks to this landmark decision, we can now be assured that only qualified persons could hold top positions in government.

Whether they like it or not, the SC has decided with finality that Ma. Lourdes Sereno wasn’t qualified to hold the position of Chief Justice. Frankly speaking, I expected a somber or distraught Ma. Lourdes Sereno to go into some kind of seclusion to emerge later after a few days. But this didn’t happen. She instead called for a press conference smiling all the way, which gives us the impression that all this was somehow planned perhaps by the opposition. Sereno wanted the Senate impeachment proceedings because she would have been front-page news everyday, not to mention a huge TV personality when nationwide television makes a circus out of that Senate proceeding.

Perhaps Ma. Lourdes Sereno did not realize that there was a very sharp contrast between her behavior prior to the SC judgment and the demeanor of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona prior to his Senate conviction. Sereno literally painted the town red, accepting all invitations from all over the country, as if she was already on the campaign trail. Apparently now that she has been summarily removed by her peers, the campaign trail continues. In the case of CJ Corona, he simply kept to himself, not even accepting invitations to speak about his case.

But as history tells us about the Corona conviction, it was done because of the revenge of then Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III for his court’s en banc decision on the fate of the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) that allowed the Aquino-Cojuangco family to hold on to Hacienda Luisita, a property that should have been turned over to the tillers of this land. Hence Pres. Aquino literally “bribed” the Senators using the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to obtain that conviction. In the case of Sereno’s ouster, no one bribed her fellow members of the Supreme Court. It was karma that happened to her.

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 Former Senate president Sen. Edgardo Angara passed away last Sunday morning from a heart attack as confirmed by his son, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara. Sen. Angara was the ultimate public servant having served his country in various capacities. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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