Healing the wounds?

Selecting members of the judiciary including the chief justice is a presidential prerogative. Presidents are only human; they will pick individuals who are known to agree with their views and policies.

While there is no guarantee that the appointee will always vote in favor of the appointing power, presidents count on the deeply entrenched Pinoy culture that frowns on ingrates.

Judicial independence in this country is not entirely a myth. But presidents still count on their appointees in the judiciary to have their backs – not just during their presidency, but long after they are no longer in power. And in several cases, grateful appointees have delivered.

Lucas Bersamin will no longer be part of the judiciary when President Duterte’s six-year term ends. The other day in his first talk with journalists following his promotion, Bersamin had to reassure the public of his independence and that of the Supreme Court after the unprecedented ouster of a chief justice through the extraconstitutional quo warranto mode initiated by the government’s chief lawyer.

This administration is pleased with Bersamin’s positions on raging issues, so he is unlikely to be subjected to a similar quo warranto petition. And with just 11 months left before his retirement, and elections coming up, there’s no chance that the Palace rubberstamp House of Representatives will ever impeach Bersamin for any perceived betrayal of the public trust. Especially with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who appointed Bersamin to the SC, as Speaker.

So Bersamin can focus on the challenging tasks ahead, and need not spin stories about being surprised by his appointment.

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Here’s an excerpt from one of my columns on the effort to oust Maria Lourdes Sereno:

“Even now there is already a strong buzz in legal circles about her possible replacement: Lucas Bersamin, appointed to the Supreme Court in April 2009 by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Bersamin, who is 68 and just a few days older than Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, is reported to have a soft spot for the guy considered in legal circles as the SC’s eminence grise, lawyer Estelito Mendoza.”

Under the heading “Deterrent,” those lines came out in February this year, when the fast-track quo warranto mode of giving Sereno the boot had not yet been unleashed.

The ouster by quo warranto was a de facto coup in the SC, and Bersamin’s promotion to chief justice completes it. Under a different administration, this issue may be revisited. But for now until the end of his 11 months, Bersamin can focus on being chief justice.

A possible upside is that the SC can begin what its former spokesman described as a process of healing. Theodore Te, who quit the SC following Sereno’s ouster, traces the start of the wounding with Arroyo’s appointment of her former aide Renato Corona as chief justice. The appointment was made when Noynoy Aquino had already been declared winner of the 2010 presidential race by then Commission on Elections chairman Jose Melo.

There was no question about Corona’s competence. But Aquino openly criticized the midnight appointment (the first time, incidentally, that Antonio Carpio’s bid for chief justice was rejected). Aquino’s congressional allies lost no time in impeaching Corona.

Even after the Senate impeachment court found Corona guilty and stripped him of his post, Aquino continued bickering with the SC, the Office of the Ombudsman and much of the judiciary, which was packed with Arroyo appointees (including Tony Carpio) – naturally, since she was in power for nine years.

Poking his finger in the eye of the SC, Aquino then picked his appointee and its second most junior member (after Marvic Leonen), Sereno, to replace Corona.

Sereno would have been chief justice long after all the Arroyo appointees and Aquino himself were no longer in office. It was, incidentally, Carpio’s second bypass for the position.

Te told us on The Chiefs, on Cignal TV’s One News channel, that the SC could have used a period of healing following the acrimonious ouster of Corona.

Instead the resentment grew deeper with the promotion of Sereno. Overnight, the “gods of Padre Faura” had a primus inter pares so junior most of them didn’t think she could even be considered as their equal.

There was no period of healing, and the rancor piled up as Sereno set out to do what chief justices normally do: to instill a modicum of discipline and fiscal prudence in the high tribunal. It didn’t help that Sereno, according to several accounts, came off with personality issues. Sources said there was resentment when she asked about the foreign trips of justices.

Her peers endured the situation during Noynoy Aquino’s presidency. And then the administration changed, and overnight Sereno faced a powerful enemy.

The rest, as we know, is history.

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De Castro took her oath as chief justice before Duterte at Malacañang. Bersamin opted to be sworn in at the SC by Antonio Carpio at the SC chamber, with De Castro looking on. That photo, taken by Aquino appointee Justice Marvic Leonen, can indicate the start of healing in the SC.

With his views on the maritime dispute with China, Carpio surely knew he was not in the running for chief justice under Duterte. But Carpio probably wanted to test the President’s pronouncement about respecting the seniority tradition in the Supreme Court – the explanation given for De Castro’s promotion. So Carpio tossed his hat into the ring, like a person trying to beat the one-in-several-million odds of hitting the lotto jackpot.

It looks like Carpio has accepted being bypassed for the third time with equanimity.

What any healing in the SC would mean for the nation is unclear. All that people want to see, as personal animosities appear to dissipate in the high tribunal, is an improvement in the administration of justice.

The room for improvement is cavernous.