Chief justice applicant Bernabe ‘textualist,’ ‘practical’

Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe on Wednesday said she could be either textualist or practical in her decision-making, naming cases which she said reflects her judicial philosophy as she guns to lead the Philippine judiciary.

Bernabe is the second most senior and the only woman of the four applicants to the post that Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin will vacate upon his retirement on October 18.

She is up against Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Andres Reyes, Jr., and Jose Reyes, Jr.

When asked about her judicial philosophy during her interview by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), Bernabe said it depends on each case.

In cases where the law is "clear," she said she is "a bit of a textualist" when she interprets a law in accordance with what it says, "in line with the separation of powers doctrine and in deference to legislative process."

The justice said she decided this way when she dissented in the decision allowing Senator Grace Poe to run for president in 2016 and when she voted in favor of downgrading charges against property developer Delfin Lee from syndicated estafa to simple estafa last year.

"But when the law is not clear and I have to uncover its intent, then the task of determining the intent would be based on reason, logic, the practical impact on society and sometimes even the practicality of the times," she said.

This "pragmatic approach," she said, is reflected in her ponencia declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel as unconstitutional and the one abandoning the condonation doctrine, a decades-old doctrine that absolves elected officials of administrative liability if reelected.

She identified the condonation doctrine case as the ponencia for which she may be acknowledged for "intellectual leadership" when asked by retired justice Jose Mendoza, a JBC member.

Bernabe voted in favor of former president Ferdinand Marcos' burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and the acquittal of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of plunder. She dissented in the ouster via quo warranto of former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

In her final statement in the JBC interview, Bernabe urged the candidate whom President Rodrigo Duterte will appoint as chief justice to "hear his constituents" and "remember that collective effort is a key to success."

"The chief justice is not a position of superiority—but an opportunity to lead the judiciary... above all I think he should always remember that he owes loyalty to the Constitution and the people," she said.

An Ateneo law alumna, Bernabe started her career in the judiciary in 1976 as a technical assistant in the office of then-justice Lorenzo Relova, then moved on to private practice, returning only in 1996 when she was appointed Makati Metropolitan Trial Court judge.

She was promoted to the city's Regional Trial Court in 2000, to the Court of Appeals in 2004, and to the High Court in 2011. She is the chair of the 2019 Bar examinations.

Bernabe will retire in 2022. — BM, GMA News