Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Thursday asked the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, to send questions to Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to shed light on how the high court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the watch list order against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last November.

 

Trillanes made the motion after the impeachment court, which is trying the case of Chief Justice Renato Corona, considered portions of Justice chief Leila de Lima’s testimony based on Sereno’s dissenting opinion as hearsay.

 

“May I request the service of written interrogatories to Justice Sereno so that we will know the story behind those en banc rulings,” he said.

 

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III proposed that Trillanes’ motion be deliberated upon by the impeachment court in a caucus on Monday, which Senate President and presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile approved.

 

Enrile earlier advised the senator-judges in Corona’s trial to disregard portions of De Lima’s testimony interpreting Sereno’s dissenting opinion on the SC’s decision to issue a TRO favoring Mrs. Arroyo, saying the Cabinet official has no direct knowledge on what really took place during the high court’s deliberations.

 

Earlier in the proceedings, the Senate junked the prosecution’s request to summon some SC justices to the trial, citing the separation of powers between Congress and the judiciary.

 

The senator-judges will also take up during the caucus SC clerk of court Enriqueta Vidal’s request to excuse two high court personnel from the trial.

 

Sotto read a letter from Vidal asking the impeachment court to no longer summon SC chief judicial officer Araceli Bayuga and process server Benjamin Anonuevo.

 

The clerk of court said the two personnel cannot testify during the trial, since Mrs. Arroyo’s case is still pending before the SC. — Andreo Calonzo/RSJ, GMA News