David Farragut’s words come to mind whenever one mulls over the way the eight “honorable” justices of the Supreme Court threw caution to the wind in their majority decision to give former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno the boot: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
And despite the opinion of practically 90 percent of the lawyers, law deans, law professors and law students all over the country to the effect that quo warranto has never been taught in any law school as a proper remedy to oust an impeachable official, those “gods of Padre Faura” nonetheless decided they had the power to do anything they wanted, and the heck with the Constitution.
“Should political fortunes metamorphose and the Court’s composition change, she could putatively be returned to her post,” former chief justice Artemio Panganiban wrote (“Quo vadis, Meilou?”, 6/24/18). Not gonna happen, sir!
No fool, President Duterte has already ensconced four justices in that Court who have shown to be ultraloyal to him. Before his term ends in 2022, he gets to appoint more of them to nail a megamajority to do his every bidding.
So, quo vadis, Sereno? Nowhere. In “Honor and shame,” (6/23/18), Solita Monsod calls what the current Supreme Court has done to Sereno a “National Day of Shame.” Ma’am, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
God chose not to answer Sereno’s prayers. Will He, perhaps, save the Philippines? After President Duterte just called Him “stupid” (“Duterte on God, Catholics and Adam’s apple,” News, 6/24/18), think again! So, who can we turn to now?
MELISSA SY-QUIATAN, melquiway4334@gmail.com