Wrong notions
Several wrong notions have surfaced in the Sereno flap that need to be constantly pointed out in light of continued attempts by some sectors to perpetuate them. Maria Lourdes Sereno was not illegally removed as chief justice. It is correct that only the Senate in an impeachment trial can remove an impeachable official such as Sereno.
Instead, the appointment of Sereno was nullified, which is to say that she was never chief justice at all, so there was no need to remove her. The Quo Warranto petition lodged against her is not an illegal act. It is a perfectly legal instrument in the statute books. It was not invented out of thin air. The petition was prompted by her failure to comply with all the requirements necessary for her appointment. She did not have the complete SALNs required.
The Quo Warranto petition came after the one year prescriptive period. Wrong. The Supreme Court correctly interpreted the prescriptive period to commence from the date of discovery of a fault, not from the date of appointment. The country cannot just turn a blind eye and ignore a travesty if a fault is discovered after a prescriptive period counted from the day of appointment. In the case of Sereno, that would have meant living a lie all the way up to 2030, the end of her term.
The Quo Warranto makes the solicitor general a most powerful man. The SolGen is powerful, but not in the sense that some people would like to strike fear in our hearts. The SolGen is still bound by a process. It is not as if he can just cause the removal or arrest of anyone by pointing a finger. The rule of law still prevails.
A Quo Warranto petition is also not the Sword of Damocles that the same sectors are trying to insist it is. If an official's appointment is free of any faults and encumbrances, then he has nothing to fear. The Quo Warranto only applies to the case of Sereno whose appointment suffered from a legal infirmity. The Quo Warranto is a legal safeguard and remedy, not an assault weapon meant to oppress and demonize.
The case of Sereno was an assault on the judiciary and democracy. Wrong again. No one could have represented the judiciary and democracy more scandalously. Here was a woman who knew perfectly well that her SALNs were not complete and yet continued to insist she had the right to sit as, of all things, the chief justice of the land. How can she, in all honesty and sincerity, pass judgment on those similarly situated?
The Sereno situation will render asunder many lessons taught in Law schools. Correct, but not in the negative connotation asunder portrays. More appropriately it will instigate changes in a good way. Nothing is ever static, least of all the law. The law is dynamic, adapting to the times and circumstances. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth are no more.
Nothing would have stirred the global media more than a cataclysmic illegality in a Third World country as what the Sereno bleeding hearts are crying to the high heavens about. But as this was written, on the Sunday morning after the Friday of Sereno's departure, not one of the major global networks have picked up the story. I do not have to belabor what the silence implies.
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