GMA Brandtalk
Tracking
Archives
Sereno says she won’t identify self as opposition figure
Ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is not about to identify herself as a politician or an opposition figure, despite publicly criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte and enjoying support from anti-administration groups.
In an interview on BBC's news program "HARDTalk" aired Wednesday, the unseated top judge said it was unlike her to plan seeking political office, which one of her spokespersons earlier said was an "option."
Under questioning, Sereno reiterated her contentions to her landmark removal from the Supreme Court — from its supposed non-adherence to the legal route of impeachment to the non-inhibition of six of her fellow justices from the case — and defended what program presenter Stephen Sackur called her "political" statements against Duterte, remarks he said were unusually heard from chief justices.
"You're sounding very much like a politician and a die-hard opponent of Rodrigo Duterte than you're sounding like a chief justice of the Supreme Court," Sackur observed, before asking Sereno if she was looking to be the leader of the opposition.
"Now, the characterization of my role is something that other people have generously helped themselves to. I am not about to characterize myself as a politician, as an opposition figure," Sereno said after her usual spiel about "more and more" of oppressed Filipinos coming to her in search of a "voice."
"What I understand is that right now my present role is that there is a voice that must be heard. People are asking me to speak for them and I have said yes. Whether I am retained as chief justice or whether I am removed as chief justice, that mission for justice must continue," she added.
The interview was aired a day after her appearance — purportedly on invitation only — at a large gathering of anti-Duterte coalition Tindig Pilipinas, which considers her an "asset" and one of whose members has sounded open to having her on the opposition's senatorial slate in the 2019 polls.
"I am not someone who plots and plans these things. I have never been really a someone who has sought a political office even in campus so no, it is far from me to be calculating along that line," Sereno said when asked to respond to notions that she was gunning for the Senate and the presidency.
Sereno, who was appointed by Duterte's predecessor Benigno Aquino III in what she considers an "out of the box" move, is backed by an alliance consisting of both Liberal Party- and left-leaning groups.
Before and after she was ousted over an alleged lack of integrity, Sereno has spoken candidly about her ordeals, and in more recent appearances did not shy away from criticizing Duterte's actions and policies.
Sereno first earned Duterte's "harsh words," for which he later apologized, after she wrote him a letter over the "premature announcement" of the names of seven judges he alleged to be linked to the illegal drug trade in 2016.
