By Philip M. Lustre Jr.
(I was invited yesterday to speak a small group of public servants, who fashioned themselves as "civil servants for democracy." I posted my paper, which I presented. But it was the open forum which was most vigorous and engaging. So, I've decided to post my response to what I considered the main question.)
SOMEBODY in the audience raised a question that perked up the open forum that followed my presentation yesterday before some 30 public servants in a restaurant in Quezon City. A fiftyish civil servant mused: “What would happen if Chief Justice (Ma. Lourdes) Sereno is removed on the basis of the quo warranto petition?”
“That’s an excellent question,” I said, raising scenarios if ever her colleagues remove her from her post. I mentioned two things: first, it could trigger a constitutional crisis; and second, her removal would make her colleagues a bunch of criminals.
But an ensuing constitutional crisis is an understatement, I said. “What could be more problematic are the moral and political dimensions. We could have a moral crisis that could later translate into a political crisis,” I said.
“Imagine a Supreme Court, where the sitting justices have openly defied and violated the very letter and spirit of the Constitution. They are criminals,” I said. “There is no other way to describe them but as criminals.”
Of course, I had to explain that the quo warranto is a legal monstrosity, which the powers-that-be have to resort because they do not want the Chief Justice to appear in the Senate as an impeachment court.
The 1987 Constitution is clear and specific. The Chief Justice could only be removed from office by impeachment. There is only a single process to remove the sitting Chief Justice and that is impeachment.
By resorting to quo warranto, the Supreme Court has become a social club, where the sitting president could be removed by a mere vote of confidence by its board of director or trustees. Definitely, the Supreme Court is more than a social club. It is the final arbiter of questions about law.
Removing the Chief Justice by quo warranto is an impeachable offense, making those justices liable for culpable violation of the Constitution, which is one of the six grounds for impeachment under the Constitution.
Definitely, the justices are acting in complete exercise of their free will. They are not under duress. Deep in their hearts and mind, they know that what there are doing is patently unconstitutional and, ergo, criminal.
I would surmise they know they have to face the music – the consequences of their illegal act, if ever they would do it. Not now, but sometime in the future. Even when they are dead, the official records would have to be revised and set straight. They would end up the villains in history.
That will be the time when they will be judged by history as conspirators of a grand larceny to rape brutally both the Philippine judiciary and democracy.
I told the audience that nothing could stop the Chief Justice from going around the country to explain her side. It is her right to speak her mind. The deprivation of a forum for her to air her side is the biggest justification for her to go every nook and cranny of the country.
The conspiracy to provide our people with a single version of the story is most appalling. The Chief Justice has to take the bull by its horn by speaking before every forum of people from various walks of life.
The constitutional crisis could end up with severe institutional damage for the Judiciary. It is not difficult to fathom how our people would view the Judiciary.
Gone are the days when our people regarded (notice my use of the past tense) them as demigods, who make the final say on many questions of law to give birth to judicial doctrines that become part of the laws of the land.
Behind its façade of deep and unparalleled erudition of the law is a rotten Supreme Court composed of judicial scalawags in robes, or criminals in the crudest sense of the word. They stink of corruption and highhandedness.
A moral crisis is to be expected as an aftermath. Because of its corruption, where else the people would go? Does the Supreme Court deserve to remain as the court of last resort, as the final arbiter of good and evil.
If we have a constitutional and moral crisis, will a brewing political crisis be far behind? Definitely, it will.
A weak, dysfunctional Supreme Court is not in a position to come out with judicial doctrines and opinions that would be binding for the country.
What it will issue are decisions that will favor the powers-that-be, or the emerging authoritarianism in the country. It would cease to function as bedrock of democracy, but a tool of the authoritarian regime.
Hence, we have a political crisis.
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