Under attack

Chief-justice-on-leave Maria Lourdes Sereno can ascribe all the evil intentions she can invent to all the troubles she is facing. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that she brought on all her troubles by herself. Her favorite bogeyman, President Duterte, did not steal her missing statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, requirements necessary for her appointment to the Supreme Court. They’re missing out of her own failure, negligence or why ever it is they are missing.

Now, there are people who will believe Sereno, of course. Despite what others may say, this is still a free country. And just like in the United States, where it is said the Russians duped Americans into believing Donald Trump was right for them, Filipinos remain free to sucker up to anyone and anything they wish to believe in, like the scuttlebutt that removing Sereno over her invalid appointment is an attack on the independence of the judiciary.

Nevertheless, Filipinos are also free to see things for what they really are. They do not have to like Duterte or support him. After all, this has got nothing to do with Duterte but all about Sereno and why she cannot stay on as chief justice. Sereno failed certain requirements. And if a store clerk can be refused employment for similar reasons, why not an official entrusted with far greater responsibilities.

The fact is, Sereno did not meet all the requirements and it is grossly cavalier for one of her staunchest supporters in the Supreme Court itself, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, to say the integrity of Sereno does not rise or fall on the availability of a single piece of paper. The integrity of Sereno does rise or fall on that single piece of missing paper. And the more she insists on belittling that piece of paper, the more she squanders what little remains of her integrity.

It is also quite revealing how myopic or close-minded our so-called legal experts are in trying to handle the legal issues hounding Sereno. They miserably fail to see that the quo warranto petition against Sereno is not an attempt to remove her, even if, admittedly, the result may be the same. A quo warranto petition is a valid legal remedy against those who assume public office short of the needed requirements.

In other words, while it is correct that the only constitutional way to remove an impeachable official like Sereno is by impeachment, it does not follow that there is no other remedy to a situation where an impeachable official is in office short of the requirements. Such a remedy exists, and that remedy is a quo warranto petition. It does not seek to remove, as only an impeachment can. What it does seek is to nullify and make void that which never was from the beginning.

Regardless of how may be described the making of Sereno’s leave permanent, it will be by far more advantageous, judicious, and equitable for everyone to have her out of office than for her to stay. And that is because there is real cause for her to be out, despite all the ill motives she panders to any taker. At least all the ill motives can be debated between those who believe them and those who do not.

But no debate exists for her disqualification. Because it is a fact that she did not submit all the requirements. It is a fact that even Leonen acknowledges when he said Sereno should not be judged on the basis of a single missing piece of paper. Well, it may be just one single miserable piece of paper. But if the law says you must pass that paper and Sereno didn’t, then what does that say of Sereno? And Leonen? If the judiciary is under attack at all, you know who the attackers are.