Chew process of law

The gloves are off, and bare knuckles now show, in the ongoing discord in the JBC—yes, the venerable constitutional body Judicial Bar Council—over the nomination for the one vacated position in the Supreme Court.

The brawl is actually an offshoot of the retirement of Associate Justice Roberto Abad. The JBC thus must submit a list of candidates for his replacement to our leader Benigno Simeon (aka BS), who in turn takes a pick from the short-list.

It so happens that Chief Justice Mario Lourdes Sereno sits as “ex officio” head of the JBC and, under the JBC rules, the associate justices of the Supreme Court may also vote on the final candidates on the JBC short-list.

Sereno, who turns 54 on Wednesday, appointed by our leader BS as chief justice in 2010 when she was only 50 years old, all of a sudden wanted to do away with the “voting” among the associate justices.

Well, she wrote them that she was only trying to “accommodate” the justices who requested her to stop conducting the “voting.” She even said in the letter: “Please be informed that I have decided to favorably consider such request.”

Now, in an en banc session of the Supreme Court, the associate justices naturally confronted Sereno about her decision to scrap the “voting.” Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro reportedly asked Sereno, pointblank, to identify the justices who made the request. The reports noted that Sereno could not name even one.

It seemed therefore that Sereno was trying to railroad the JBC selection process, perhaps to shoot down certain nomination. From what I gathered, Sereno was particularly, well, “unhappy” about the inclusion of Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza on the short-list.

At the same time, word started going around that Sereno’s candidate was the current Commission on Audit (COA) chair Grace Pulido-Tan. It seemed that, by shooting down Jardeleza’s nomination, the chances of Tan to get the nod of our leader BS would zoom up immediately.

You see, both Jardeleza and Tan were closely associated with the Aquino (Part II) administration. They are both said to be personally close to our dear leader BS himself. In legal circles, the talk was already about an “either-or” scenario between the two to take the single vacant position in the Supreme Court.

Who was this Jardeleza to Sereno, anyway, because from what I gathered, he seemed to be highly qualified, having finished law at the University of the Philippines, graduating cum laude and salutatorian of his class, placed third in the bar exams, and earned his MA of Laws at the Harvard Law School.

By the way, Jardeleza was SVP and general counsel of the conglomerate San Miguel Corp. until 2010, and only last last week, the UP Alumni Association gave him an award for his work as head of the Philippine legal team in the West Philippine Sea arbitration against China.

I mean, really now, how do you remove a candidate like Jardeleza from the JBC short-list if not by chewing his integrity as a government official?

And so it seemed that Sereno tried to waylay Jardeleza in the JBC process precisely by chewing on his integrity, as she “objected” to his nomination personally, meaning, she did it on her own, without official complaints against Jardeleza from any third party.

In fact, our very own Chief Justice invoked the “blackball” rule against Jardeleza to force his disqualification from the short-list. Sereno herself raised questions about Jardeleza’s integrity.

Under the JBC rules, when somebody challenges the integrity of an applicant, all the members of JBC, i.e., each and everyone, must vote “yes” for the JBC even just to consider the nomination.

Sereno did precisely just that: She questioned the integrity of one application. In other words, the blackball dropped by Sereno against the nomination of Jardeleza should immediately disqualify him.

Noting that a member of the JBC, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at that, was directly his accuser, Jardeleza ran to the Supreme Court to direct the JBC to stop Sereno from voting on the applicants to the JBC short-list.

From what I gathered, the four “regular members” of the JBC, i.e., not the “ex officio” members who sat in the council by virtue of their positions in the Aquino (Part II) administration, met with Sereno last week on Jardeleza’s move to ask the Supreme Court to prohibit her from voting.

Among the JBC members in the meeting were retired Court of Appeals Justice Aurora Santiago-Lagman, representing the private sector; lawyer Jose Mejia, representing the academe, and lawyer Milagros Fernan-Cayosa, representing the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

Even then, from what I gathered, Sereno told the regular members of the JBC that they themselves should proceed with the voting, which was scheduled for today, June 30, and they should do so whether or not Jardeleza would appear.

Now, Jardeleza’s appearance before the JBC, precisely to defend himself against the accusation of Sereno regarding his “integrity,” could be a crucial part of the plot in this JBC soap. It was Sereno herself that directed Jardeleza to appear before the JBC today.

From what I gathered, his appearance before the JBC would only be a private executive session, sans record of the proceedings. To top it all, the JBC would not even inform the poor Jardeleza of the accusations against him.

Basta, somebody questioned his integrity, period! In such a scenario, how could anybody even be expected to put up any kind of defense, not to mention any “meaningful” defense?

It seemed that the JBC members saw something in the strategy of Sereno, and so they objected to her idea that the JBC should proceed with the voting. For one, Jardeleza already elevated his case against Sereno before the Supreme Court en banc, which would hold a session tomorrow, July 1.

That would be the next day of the supposed “voting” that Sereno was pushing to the JBC members, who were nevertheless leaning more toward prudence. They wanted to wait for the Supreme Court en banc decision on Jardeleza’s petition.

What if the Supreme Court were to grant his petition for the TRO issuance against Sereno? I mean, what kind of humiliation would the JBC have to face?

And all that maneuvering, ladies and gentlemen, was happening only at the JBC level. Just imagine how messy things could yet become at the level of our dear leader BS, who actually would have the last say. Supposedly, anyway!