Sereno hits back: Duterte’s response 'betrays the entire story'

After facing her peers in the quo warranto oral arguments in Baguio City, Chief Justice on leave Maria Lourdes Sereno on Wednesday hit the President’s latest tirades against her.

“You have heard the pronouncement of the President.  I was just asking a question that actually needed to be answered: why the Solicitor General was devoting resources of the government to oust a sitting justice through a quo warranto petition?  You heard his answer. His answer betrays the entire story,” Sereno said in a keynote address for the Philippine Bar Association’s fellowship night in Makati City.

Duterte on Monday called on the House of Representatives to fast-track the impeachment of the top magistrate.

Sereno’s purported insistence that he was behind the efforts to oust her appeared to have irked the President who publicly declared Sereno an “enemy” who has “to be out of the Supreme Court.”

“One man rule already is here”

Sereno warned lawyers against the “deadly” and “malevolent” legal remedy sought against her.

The chief magistrate believes the Supreme Court would be committing a "judicial suicide" if it rules in favor of Solicitor General Jose Calida.

“I will use directly the words of Chief Justice Hilario Davide that he delivered last week, that it would be judicial harakiri if not a judicial kamikaze, bringing with it the destruction of the entire judiciary as well as the entire legal profession where your fight against one man rule is already lost. One man rule already is here,” Sereno said.

She explained that judges and justices will cease to be independent and would not dare express dissent if a quo warranto petition succeeds in removing a chief justice who has been serving for almost six years on the basis of inadequate documentary requirements that the Judicial and Bar Council had earlier waived.

Citing that such precedent will be “unparalleled in the evil that it will bring the country,” Sereno said even private legal practice could be affected.

She quipped that it would perhaps be best for all lawyers to seek a career in the Office of the Solicitor General instead since they “will no longer be able to fight on a level playing-field” against the government.

“The solicitor general who will be your adversary as counsel will be able to file at any time a quo warranto petition against a judge at which both of you are appearing,” Sereno said.

“Why have you been silent?”

With this, the Chief Justice has called on members of the PBA, the oldest national organization of lawyers, to have courage, remember history, and speak up for democracy.

“Are we afraid that we would be called names? Are we afraid that some of our clients might find themselves under harassment as well? This is not the time to keep your silence," she said.

Sereno is facing a quo warranto case before the Supreme Court for alleged incomplete submission of statement of assets, liabilities and net worth or SALN.

The high court has ordered Sereno and the Solicitor General to submit their respective memoranda by April 20.

The case will then be submitted for resolution. — BAP, GMA News