Maria Lourdes Sereno is the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court. She is also currently the subject of two proceedings seeking her ouster from office: first, impeachment before Congress; and, second, a suit for quo warranto before the Supreme Court itself.

Most see this as payback against the previous administration of Benigno Aquino III, commonly referred to as PNoy (short for President Noynoy). CJ Sereno was Aquino’s choice as Chief Justice and whose appointment ignored the age-old tradition of choosing among the eldest sitting justices as the next Chief Justice. Not only that, she took over from former Chief Justice Renato Corona who was himself impeached and removed from office by people close to PNoy. Former CJ Corona was considered close to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was also charged with plunder by the PNoy administration in connection with the ZTE Broadband deal with the Chinese. Unlike Corona, however, she managed to finish her term, skip incarceration by being confined in a hospital, and successfully had the charges against her dropped for lack of evidence. She is also back in power as a Member of the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress. It is also said that Arroyo was instrumental in getting former Davao Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte elected as President. So, the wheel turns and Digong’s people are now after PNoy’s people.

Senator Leila De Lima was first to be targeted. Newly minted as a Senator, she immediately managed to piss off Digong. During PNoy’s time, she was the Secretary of Justice who ran after Arroyo, even disallowing Arroyo from boarding a flight to seek medical treatment despite the fact that Arroyo got the Corona Supreme Court to issue an order restraining De Lima from preventing Arroyo’s departure. The current Secretary of Justice charged her with involvement in the illegal drugs trade when convicted felons alleged that they paid De Lima in order to keep their illegal drug trade going even while incarcerated in the New Bilibid Prison (“Bilibid”). Evidence seems week judging from the evidence presented during Congressional hearings but they charged her anyway. She is now in detention.

The funny thing about this is that the illegal drugs trade is still flourishing at the Bilibid despite the change in administration and despite the vows of Digong and the new SoJ to end it. If De Lima is now detained, one wonders who is running things now. If De Lima was blamed for the illegal drugs trade because, among others, she was the SoJ who had jurisdiction over the Bureau of Corrections, the guys overseeing Bilibid, then shouldn’t the current SoJ also be charged for the same offense? A question for another time I guess.

Next was the Ombudsman, former Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, who was also a PNoy appointee. Well, they tried but, so far, nothing has come out of their efforts.

So we now come to CJ Sereno. The charges were based on hearsay as the person who filed it in the House did not have personal knowledge of the facts alleged. It should have been dismissed outright for lack of substance but Digong’s people decided to gather evidence themselves. They seem satisfied with their work (never mind that they disallowed the lawyers of CJ Sereno from disputing the allegations) and the majority voted to impeach the CJ but they held off sending the articles to the Senate (the upper house of Congress who is supposed to sit as the Impeachment Court) pending the resolution of the quo warranto proceeding filed by the Solicitor General against CJ Sereno.

A quo warranto proceeding seeks to remove a public officer from office because he does not have the qualifications for said office. It is alleged that CJ Sereno failed to submit all the requirements when she applied for appointment to the Supreme Court. So, the theory is she can be removed from office via a quo warranto proceeding.

Most lawyers would laugh that off because the Constitution says that Members of the Supreme Court, among others, “may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust” (Article XI, Section 2, 1987 Constitution). A quo warranto suit is, therefore, not a proper proceeding for the removal of the CJ from office.

It must be noted that the evidence against the CJ appear flimsy. They failed to show partiality or interfering with lower courts. The tax charge is questionable and so is the SALN thing. It should also be pointed out that pissing off sitting justices by skipping over them and being chosen as CJ despite being a relatively new SC appointee is not an impeachable offense. If it is, then that should be taken against the appointing power, PNoy, and not the appointee. Too late though, PNoy has completed his term as President.

So, impeachment is iffy and quo warranto is doubtful. Plan C is now in effect and that is to pressure judges to force CJ Sereno to resign “to save the office of the CJ from indignity” and so on. Of course, the CJ retorted with “ano sila, sinuswerte?” (That’s hard to translate into English but, in essence, it means she won’t make it easy for them.)

Indeed, a number of people have already questioned the motivation of those behind this move because, they point out, that if anyone caused the dignity of the office to be tainted, then it is those who allowed themselves to “testify” against the CJ before the House hearings and diminishing the independence of the judiciary by allowing themselves to be subjected to questioning by the House.

So, after all this, how do you solve the problem? If we believe in the Rule of Law, then, by all means, let her have her day in Court. Give her due process. Be it impeachment or quo warranto, let it run its course before the appropriate forum and let her stand or fall by the evidence adduced by both parties. It’s that simple…if we still believe in the Rule of Law that is…