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Thursday, March 28, 2024

‘Carpio refused offer to be CJ’

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President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday defended his decision to appoint Lucas Bersamin as the new Supreme Court chief justice, saying his first choice rejected his offer.

In a speech in Tubod, Lanao del Norte, Duterte said the most senior among the sitting magistrates, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, “refused the offer,” which is why he decided to pick the person next in rank.

Bersamin is only the third most senior magistrate of the Supreme Court, but is the most senior justice in terms of service in the courts, where he has served 32 years.

“Carpio refused the offer. So the next in rank is… Next in rank if you’re good,” Duterte said in Visayan, referring to Bersamin.

Carpio earlier declined his nomination for top magistrate saying he did not want to benefit from the ouster of Maria Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice after voting against it.

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He has also repeatedly pushed for the government to assert the ruling of a UN tribunal that invalidated China’s claims over the West Philippine Sea, a stand that seemed to irk the President.

“You keep on hankering that you’ll attack the—you do something. What do you want me to do? Arbitration, so I’ll order my military and the police to go there in Palawan and shoot it out?” Duterte asked. “It will be a massacre. We will not win there. We won’t get anything from it.”

At the Palace, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Carpio’s reasons for turning down the nomination in July should still hold true today.

“In the first place, the justice then declined the nomination for the reason that he didn’t want to take advantage of the ouster of Sereno. So, following the same logic, he should also decline the nomination now,” Panelo said.

He added that Duterte thought that Carpio would reject the nomination to be the country’s next top magistrate as the justice previously declined the nomination to replace Sereno.

“It’s still the same because the ouster of Sereno triggered vacancies, right? Following that logic, he will be taking advantage [again of the vacancies],” he said.

Panelo said, however, that Carpio’s stand on the West Philippine Sea had nothing to do with his being bypassed for the top post again.

READ: Bersamin new chief justice

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