Groups seeking the impeachment of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno on Friday asked the Supreme Court to release pertinent records to substantiate their complaint filed against her before the House of Representatives.
In a two-page letter, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and the Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. asked for certified copies of at least seven documents of the SC that will prove the allegations in their impeachment complaint filed last Wednesday.
The letter signed by VACC founding chairman Dante Jimenez and VPCI president was addressed to the full Court, through SC clerk of court Felipa Anama.
The request was expected to test the clout of Sereno among her colleagues in the 15-member Court, which should decide on the matter collegially.
Among the documents requested by the two groups is the Memorandum of Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo – De Castro questioning Sereno’s orders which lacked necessary approval of the collegial court as provided under the rules, including the appointment of a Philippine Judicial Academy official and provision for travel allowances of her staff.
De Castro’s internal memorandum, which was reported in the media earlier, specifically assailed the appointment of Brenda Jay Mendoza as Philja chief of office for the Philippine Mediation Center, which she said violated their Administrative Order No. 33-2008 that required the appointment for the post to be approved by the SC collegially.
The female magistrate also questioned Sereno’s grant of foreign travel allowance to members of her staff without required approval from the full court.
According to her, the Chief Justice’s staff members were being given travel allowances even when their trips abroad were on “official time,” which should not involve expenditure of public funds.
Lastly, De Castro has questioned the “long delay” in the appointment in vacant key positions in SC pending before Sereno’s office, “which is prejudicial to the best interest of service.”
The VACC and VPCI also sought the SC records involving the SC’s revocation of Sereno’s order in 2012 to reopen a regional constitutional administrative office in Cebu without the collegial approval of the Court.
Likewise, they asked for Sereno’s memorandum for appointment of lawyer Solomon Lumba as her staff head and the subsequent letter of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio withdrawing his signature in the said appointment over an internal issue.
The groups asked the SC to provide them copies of the documents pertinent to these issues against Sereno after they filed the impeachment complaint but no lawmaker came forward for the needed endorsement.
An impeachment complaint needs to get an endorsement of a sitting congressman before it could be referred to the House committee on justice for hearing.
In their complaint, the groups accused Sereno of culpable violation of the Constitution by issuing an administrative order creating the new Judiciary Decentralized Office (JDO) and re-opening the Regional Administration Office (RCAO) in Western Visayas in the absence of an authority from the Court.
They also raised the appointments of Lumba and Mendoza in the SC as basis.
The complaint also alleged that Sereno committed betrayal of public trust for sitting on the applications for the vacant posts in the Supreme Court.