Supreme Court blocks Calida's quo warranto bid vs. Leonen

The Supreme Court (SC) has unanimously rejected Solicitor General Jose Calida and a lawyer's request for copies of Associate Justice Marvic Leonen's Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). 

The court denied the requests of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and of lawyer Lorenzo Gadon for "copies of the SALN of and other information pertaining to SC Associate Justice Marvic Mario Victor F. Leonen, for purposes of preparing a Quo Warranto petition," court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said Tuesday. 

"Justice Leonen took no part in the resolution," Hosaka told reporters. 

Quo warranto is a legal proceeding that seeks, among others, to challenge a person's right to hold a public office. Then-chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was removed from her post through a quo warranto petition filed by Calida and granted by the SC in a landmark ruling in 2018. 

Sereno was ousted over allegations that she failed to file some of her SALNs when she was a law professor at the University of the Philippines. 

On September 7, Gadon, who had moved for Sereno's impeachment and supported her ouster, asked the OSG to institute quo warranto proceedings against Leonen. 

Gadon told Calida that the "same standard" applied to Sereno over her alleged "non-filing of SALNs" should also be applied to Leonen, who used to be the dean of the UP College of Law. 

Two days later, Gadon said he had requested copies of Leonen's SALNs from the Office of the Clerk of Court. 

Hosaka said on Tuesday that he was not informed why the SC denied the requests of the OSG and Gadon. 

"Best that we wait for the written resolution," the spokesman said. 

President Benigno Aquino III appointed Leonen to the highest Philippine court in 2012. The peace negotiator was only 49 years old at the time of the appointment, making him the youngest justice to be named to the SC since 1938. 

Leonen is now the third most senior justice after Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, who was appointed to the court in 2009, and Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, who was appointed in 2011. —KG, GMA News