Opinion: When political harassment went wild

Ousted Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno (center, with lavender shawl) met with her supporters on May 11, 2018 after the Supreme Court voted 8-6 in favor of the quo warranto case filed against her. INQUIRER.net file photo, Marianne Bermudez CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Duterte family and their supporters should be very familiar with political harassment. The nephew of Vice President Sara Duterte, Rep. Omar Duterte of Davao's second district, has claimed that a Regional Trial Court judge's issuance of a warrant for her arrest for three counts of alleged grave threats, based on words she uttered in a remote press conference, is political harassment. But in fairness to the Vice President, she has posted bail of less than half a million pesos instead of placing herself in police custody for the probable offense — a recognition, if grudging, that she enjoys due process, due process that was denied the victims of her father's drug war. And it seems that the Constitution indicates that a Vice President may only be removed from via impeachment, not imprisonment (let the legal luminaries shine). Harassed Chief Justice Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was expelled from the Supreme Court through a quo warranto petition by former president Rodrigo Duterte's solicitor general, Jose Calida, although the Philippine Constitution states that the head of the Supreme Court may only be removed by impeachment. That, in the eyes of many, was political harassment. The executive's machinery moved to unseat her only when she asserted the independence of the judiciary, in the first instance questioning the wisdom of Duterte's inclusion of judges in his so-called 'drug list,' an enumeration that strained credulity not least because one magistrate who was named had been dead for eight years. Worse, that judge, the late Roberto Navidad of Regional Trial Court 32 in Calbayog City, Samar, had been killed precisely because he was fighting illegal drugs, said his nephew, a court sheriff. Sereno had correctly pointed out that anyone in a list such as Duterte's had the right to due process. More importantly, as an independent branch of the government, the judiciary was responsible for disciplining its own members. It could not afford to just keep quiet when judges were carelessly presumed guilty — in effect being crippled from administering justice. The former president and Calida, however, are not solely to blame for the seemingly sorry ending to Sereno's judicial career. Another former Chief Justice's take There was the High Court majority at the time, whose members were in the end responsible for unseating one of their own in an act so ignominious, it triggered no less than former chief justice Artemio Panganiban to write a series of columns appealing to the Supreme Court to undo the harm it had inflicted upon itself in creating jurisprudence establishing that anyone among them may be kicked out through a quo warranto, which seeks to disprove the legal right of a person to hold office. Panganiban has time and again urged the Supreme Court to 'restore the shroud granted by the Constitution to the Supreme Court to protect its independence: Justices may be removed only by impeachment and only for the grounds clearly provided therein.' And while Panganiban has kept the injustice against Sereno fresh in public memory, we need not really go outside the current Supreme Court to hear at least one authoritative voice that states that her removal was wrong, plain and simple. Seppuku without honor, recovering moral ground 'I view with deep shame and regret this day when the Court has ousted one of its sitting Members upon the prodding of mere agency of separate coordinate department,' Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa had written in his dissenting opinion, now among the least forgettable among such documents, not least for having provoked a furore among a few the Lower House. '[I] steadfastly maintain that the members of the Court cannot and should not allow themselves to be used in this manner. No matter how dislikable a member of the Court is, the rules cannot be changed just to get rid of him, or her in this case,' Caguioa said. 'The other members of the Court the Court en banc are called upon to grin and bear the unbearable as travelling this prohibited road will be at the expense and to the extreme prejudice of the independence of the entire Judiciary, the independence of the Court's individual members, and the freedom of discourse within the Court. This case marks the time when the Court commits seppuku without honor.' Panganiban believes the court has not closed its doors to righting the wrong it committed with Sereno's removal. For those who think with Panganiban and Caguioa (who has been invited by the Judicial and Bar Council to apply for the post of Supreme Court Chief Justice), the court's failure to reinstate her is a continuing consequence of political harassment that must come undone. Should her restoration come to pass, the court of last resort could, to observers, recover some of the moral high ground it had squandered when it capitulated to an (un)presidential bully pulpit that was used for political harassment. Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again. Your subscription has been successful. Subscribe to our daily newsletter SIGN ME UP Read Next