THE House committee on justice hearing the impeachment complaint filed against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is expected to decide if there is probable cause to remove her by the end of this month.
“By end of February, we will wrap up the probable cause hearings. We only have one scheduled hearing left, [and that will be on] February 27,” the panel’s chairman, Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, told a radio interview.
He made the statement even as a suspended lawyer on Wednesday asked Solicitor General Jose Calida to initiate proceedings that would challenge Sereno’s claim to the top post at the Supreme Court.
In a two-page letter dated Feb. 21, 2018, Eligio Mallari, who leads a group that unsuccessfully tried to have Sereno impeached, asked Calida to initiate quo warranto proceedings to challenge Sereno’s claim to the post.
According to the rules of court, the government can initiate quo warranto proceedings against a person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office.
But Sereno’s lawyer said the quo warranto petition filed by Eligio Mallari, whom the Supreme Court barred from practicing law, was nothing but a scrap of paper that would not see the light of day.
“As president of Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution, Mr. Mallari should know what the Constitution says on the removal of an impeachable officer,” Josa Deinla said.
“The Chief Justice, being the fifth highest official of the land, can only be removed through an impeachment proceeding, and not through a quo warranto proceeding.
“We cannot help but view this latest ignorant attempt as part and parcel of the grand plan to harass, malign and humiliate the Chief Justice to force her to resign because her detractors know that the impeachment complaint lodged against her is baseless and contains allegations which are not even grounds for impeachment.”
The committee on justice has so far conducted 14 hearings on whether there is probable cause to oust Sereno, an appointee of President Benigno Aquino III, based on the complaint filed by lawyer Larry Gadon.
Sereno has not attended the committee’s hearings.
Umali said his panel’s hearing on Feb. 27 would be the 15th and last hearing on the determination of probable cause against Sereno.
During the last hearing, Umali said his panel was expected to tackle Sereno’s psychiatric records and her alleged hand in delaying the issuance of an arrest warrant against former Justice secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima who is detained over illegal drug charges.
Umali said the actual voting of the committee members on the probable cause would take place at another date.
As soon as the committee finds probable cause against Sereno, the House will transmit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, where the senators will sit as prosecutors in an Senate Impeachment Court.
Gadon accuses Sereno of “culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, corruptio, and other high crimes” for her alleged lapses, including her allegedly untruthful declaration of wealth in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth.