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De Castro: Sereno appointment is void due to lies, deception
Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro said she voted to grant the quo warranto plea against ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno because the latter's appointment was invalid to start with.
In her 45-page concurring opinion, De Castro said Sereno failed to submit her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth for 2002 to 2006 — when she was still a UP law professor — to the Judicial and Bar Council as required for applicants to the chief justice post vacated by ousted Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012.
De Castro said the 2006 SALN Sereno submitted to the JBC in 2010 was "just a piece of paper" because it was unsubscribed and did not come in the authorized SALN form.
De Castro also cited Sereno's alleged "penchant to deceive" when she claimed in her Personal Data Sheet (PDS) — one of the documentary requirements for her SC application — that she became deputy commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights even when no such position existed.
Sereno would later clarify the post was a "functional title," but De Castro stressed that the information being required by the JBC to be indicated in the PDS should be "Position Title" and not "functional" ones.
De Castro said Sereno also lied in her PDS when she claimed became a lecturer at the Murdoch University and at the University of Western Australia. As it turned out, Sereno lectured for the Taguig-based Esteban School, in partnership with UWA, for the foreign university's MBA program being offered not in Australia but in the Philippines.
"Respondent's appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, secured through her lies and deception in the entries in her sworn PDS and regarding her non-compliance with the abovementioned SALN requirement of the JBC, is void ab initio, and for such reason," she said.
De Castro said Sereno "deliberately deceived and misled the JBC so as to secure her inclusion in the shortlist of candidates for the vacancy."
De Castro said Sereno's "pattern of deception" continued when her camp claimed in the media that she was taking a two-week wellness leave, when Sereno, with the en banc's approval, announced she was taking an indefinite leave amid the impeachment proceedings at the House of Representatives.
In her dissent, De Castro also addressed Sereno's request for her to inhibit from the quo warranto case due to her [De Castro's] alleged bias and partiality, having testified against the top judge in the House proceedings.
Saying Sereno's inhibition plea "utterly lacks basis," De Castro clarified her "disagreements" with Sereno were not borne out of personal interest or actual bias but work-related arising from the latter's alleged bypass of the Court en banc, falsification of a court order and resolution, and misleading and lying to her fellow magistrates. — MDM, GMA News
RELATED LINKS:
Main decision
- SC: Sereno failed to file SALNs, unfit to be Chief Justice
- 6 justices weren't biased against Sereno —SC ouster decision
Concurring opinion
Dissenting opinions
- Carpio: SC rewrote constitution with Sereno ouster
- Leonen: Quo warranto a legal abomination
- Caguioa on Sereno ouster: SC committed suicide without honor
