THE Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered President Benigno Aquino III to comment on a petition questioning the appointments of two new magistrates of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court.
The Court also ordered Malacañang to submit its comment to the petition within 10 days of receiving its notice, spokesman Theodore Te said.
The petitioners are judges who were shortlisted for a vacant position in the Sandiganbayan, and they claim Aquino violated the Constitution when he appointed former Undersecretary Michael Frederick Musngi and lawyer Maria Geraldine Faith Econg as the 16th and 18th Associate Justices of the Sandiganbayan.
They claim that Musngi and Econg were in a different shortlist and so should not have been named to the Sandiganbayan.
The petitioners are Regional Trial Court Judges Philip Aguinaldo, Reynaldo Alhambra, Danilo Cruz, Benjamin Pozon and Salvador Timbang Jr. and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.