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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Thursday, August 3, 2017
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MANILA – Two impeachment complaints against Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno were lodged Wednesday at the House of Representatives.
The complaints – filed separately by lawyer Larry Gadon and the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) – cited a gamut of alleged infractions, from financial nondisclosures to violation of the Constitution.
Sereno failed to disclose in her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth the $745,000 (P37 million) “exorbitant lawyer’s fees” she received from the government, Gadon said in his 54-page complaint.
Her falsification of a Supreme Court resolution and a restraining order on two pending cases is also a “culpable violation of the Constitution,” claimed Gadon.
His other accusations include:
* Sereno prevented Court of Appeals justices from calling on President Rodrigo Duterte, favoritism and usurpation of Supreme Court mandate.
* Sereno obstructed justice by preventing a lower court judge from issuing a warrant of arrest against Sen. Leila de Lima.
* Sereno committed “extravagant spending” for buying a Toyota Land Cruiser worth P5.1 million and shelling out “P3 million to P4 million” more for bulletproofing it, and traveling and taking business-class flights, and spending P150,000 a night in a presidential suite in Boracay after attending a meeting.
Meanwhile, the VACC led by Chairman Dante Jimenez accused Sereno of violating the Constitution for issuing an administrative order creating a new Judiciary Decentralization Office and reopening a Regional Court Administration Office in Western Visayas without en banc authority.
Other alleged violations of Sereno the VACC claimed are:
* Violation of a Constitutional provision preventing appointive government officials from holding another office, when she appointed Solomon Lumba as her staff head
* Appointing Atty. Brenda Jay Mendoza to the Philippine Mediation Center of the Philippine Judicial Academy without high court approval
* Providing allowances for her staffers’ allowance for foreign travel without en banc approval
* Betrayal of public trust, for refusing to fill up vacancies in Supreme Court senior positions, including two posts for assistant court administrator./PN
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