\u201cNEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER\u201d Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno strikes a defiant pose while speaking at ang Araw ng Kagitingan event. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno warned the country\u2019s lawyers: One-man rule is already here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just asking [the President] a question that actually needed to be answered, which is why Solicitor General Jose Calida was devoting resources of the government to unseat me,\u201d Sereno said at a fellowship meeting of the Philippine Bar Association in Makati City.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou heard his answer. His answer betrays the entire story,\u201d Sereno said.<\/p>\n
Lost fight<\/p>\n
She warned the lawyers that if the quo warranto petition brought by Calida to invalidate her appointment succeeds, then \u201cyour fight against one-man rule is already lost even before you have begun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sereno\u2019s remark came on the heels of President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s directive to the House of Representatives on Monday to expedite the impeachment of the Chief Justice, which critics described as a violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers.<\/p>\n
The Chief Justice painted a bleak and dire picture of the future of the law profession should the Supreme Court grant the petition, which she said would bring \u201cthe destruction of the entire judiciary, as well as the constitutional framework.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dangers besetting us strike at the very root of our nation,\u201d Sereno said. \u201cIf they succeed [in removing] an impeachable officer nearly six years after her appointment, then every sitting justice will no longer be independent.\u201d The Solicitor General will have the newfound ability to bring quo warranto petitions against any of them, said the Chief Justice whom Calida wants to unseat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER\u201d Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno strikes a defiant pose while speaking at ang Araw ng Kagitingan event. Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno warned the country\u2019s lawyers: One-man rule is already here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5046,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions\/5046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}