THE chairman of the House committee on justice warned Sunday that impeachable officials of the Judicial and Bar Council who shortlisted Maria Lourdes Sereno for the position of chief justice in 2012 could face impeachment complaint before the House of Representatives.
Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, who chairs the panel, made this observation after the Supreme Court voted 8-6 granting the quo warranto petition of Solicitor General Jose Calida to remove Sereno from her post due to her questionable qualifications.
“If there is are impeachable officers among them, they too might be impeached,” Umali said in Filipino over radio dzBB.
“That’s dereliction of duty. Think about how the whole country was thrown into disarray because of what they did. This issue divided the nation,” he said.
He called on the Supreme Court to investigate the manner in which Sereno was included in the short list of candidates vying for the chief justice post during the Aquino administration.
“The Supreme Court should act because they have supervision over the JBC,” he said. “They should investigate how Sereno got through the process,” he said. “Was there a conspiracy?”
The Supreme Court on Friday granted Calida’s petition to invalidate the appointment of Sereno.