Movement

Unable to continue playing a judicial role, ousted former chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno now threatens to lead a “movement” to exact accountability from those who hold the reins of power. She sails into an uncharted sea that, like her earlier adventure on the bench, she might be unprepared to master.

She made that announcement on the day the Supreme Court ruled with finality on her expulsion.

In a democracy, to be sure, every citizen is entitled to demand accountability from those who rule. Sereno, as a citizen of good standing whether or not she properly filed her statement of assets and liabilities, is certainly entitled to ask questions from her government. What make her exceptional in performing something every citizen ought to be doing is not clear.

Her idea of heading up a “movement” is at its wooliest stage. That motley crowd that religiously turns up for her sparse rallies are egging her on, trying hard to find a place for her in our public life.

Those who are somehow convinced our democracy is in danger could surely use a heroine – or a martyr. Those already available to lead the self-styled “resistance” to the perceived threat of “creeping authoritarianism” are wanting in many respects.

Leila de Lima is in jail with drug-related issues. She tries to keep relevant by writing notes from behind bars that amounts to nothing more than editorials on the issues of the day.

Leni Robredo strikes many as an aspiring political player who is in constant need of a fact-checker. Last month, she asked our government to protest the landing of Chinese military aircraft in Woody Island – which happens to be in the Paracels and a long way from our exclusive economic zone. Not even Vietnam, a country claiming some islands in the Paracels, bothered to protest the Chinese planes.

And what about Sereno? 

The lady was at her best performing as research assistant to an eminent legal personality. When she was appointed to the Supreme Court despite not having seen the inside of a courthouse, she was largely tolerated. When she was appointed Chief Justice, the door to tragedy was opened. She won the disdain, not the respect, of her peers.

Now her most avid fans club wants her to assume a role she is not particularly equipped to play. They want her to lead some sort of “movement” that will battle the largely imagined dragons of impending tyranny. From all she has said so far, it seems more fitting to describe her as a female version of Don Quixote charging at windmills.

When she tried asking questions of those who now govern us, they proved to be less than earthshaking. All the questions she posed she might have answered herself by doing a little research.

Those egging Sereno on should be a little more charitable toward a lady who might not be equipped to meet the expectations made of her. They might be offering this lady a predicament instead of an opportunity.

While the Court deliberated the quo warranto petition, this small band of Sereno groupies encouraged her to strike a more strident posture. She demanded that sitting justices inhibit from her case and accused her erstwhile colleagues of being biased.

Because of her performance before tiny but enthusiastic audiences, the Court has asked her explain to why she should not be charged with contempt. There could be more penalties down the road.

When she appeared before her colleagues to explain her side, Sereno adopted the combative posture her supporters preferred. She quarrelled with the magistrates instead of defending herself with facts. She doomed her own case. Single-handedly.

On the day she was ousted with finality, she wildly accused the House of Representatives of holding the judiciary’s budget hostage to win cooperation with the impeachment effort. She forgot the judiciary enjoyed fiscal autonomy and Congress could never constitutionally reduce, much less withhold, the budget for an independent branch of government.

Perhaps all this talk of leading a “movement” is nothing more than a cynical method for keeping Sereno in the public eye until the senatorial campaign commences.

Liberal Party president Kiko Pangilinan did invite Sereno to join his party’s senatorial ticket for next year’s election. That is not much of an honor, to be sure. The LP has been seriously depleted by desertions. It has been frantically scrounging about for people to field for its Senate ticket.

Pangilinan, we will recall, did try to help Sereno while her motion for reconsideration was being deliberated upon by the High Court. He went about collecting signatures for some sort of sense-of-the-Senate resolution that labeled the Court’s quo warranto ruling “unconstitutional.”

Under our Constitution, however, the Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction over questions of constitutionality. The Pangilinan resolution was thinly veiled bullying of the justices. In the end, the senator could not defend his resolution on the Senate floor. That resolution, overtaken by events, is now doomed to the archives.

It remains, however, symbolic of the confusion and hypocrisy of the pro-Sereno crowd. In the name of “judicial independence,” they organized rallies aimed at bamboozling the sitting justices to see things their way.

Sereno is, at best, the victim of an incredibly weak defense her supporters tried to compensate for by putting her on the podium to spew scurrilous rhetoric. Now they want her to be the icon of a “movement” whose cause will, if they find it, might be larger than her person.