The anti-crime watchdog Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption on Tuesday filed its “substitute” impeachment complaint against Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno at the House of Representatives.
VACC founding chairperson and president Dante Jimenez amended the complaint at the House Secretary General’s Office but has yet to get any congressman to endorse the complaint.
Jimenez was accompanied by Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. lawyer Eligio Mallari and former congressman Jacinto Paras.
Attached to the substituted impeachment complaint are the certified true copies of court records and documents on 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 high court.
Jimenez alleges that Sereno committed a culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust when she issued an order creating the new Judiciary Decentralized Office and reopen the RCAO in Western Visayas in the absence of an authority from the court en banc.
The VACC also alleged that Sereno violated the Constitution when she appointed lawyer Solomon Lumba to head her staff.
The group said the law provides that appointive government officials shall not hold another public post unless provided for by law. When Sereno appointed Lumba, he was a tenured faculty member of the state-run University of the Philippines’ College of Law.
VACC also questioned Sereno’s appointment of lawyer Brenda Jay Mendoza as Philippine Mediation Center Office chief by mere memorandum and without concurrence from the court en banc.
It also alleged that Sereno committed an illegal act when she granted members of her staff travel allowances for foreign travel charges to the Supreme Court funds without court en banc approval.
Sereno betrayed the public trust over her failure to fill up some vacant positions in the Supreme Court, such as deputy clerk of court and chief attorney, which have been vacant for more than three years; and the two positions for assistant court administrator, which have been vacant for over four years, the VACC added.
In its initial 16-page complaint, the group noted that Article VIII, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution “vests administrative supervision over all courts and the personnel thereof in the Supreme Court, and not in the Office of the Chief Justice.”
“Neither can the Chief Justice deprive the Court of its constitutional duty to exercise administrative supervision over all courts and their personnel and the Office of the Court Administrator of its statutory duty under Presidential Decree 828 to assist the Supreme Court in the exercise of said power of administrative supervision,” it added.
“Chief Justice Sereno is not the Supreme Court and, in arrogating unto herself the power to appoint the officials and personnel of the Judiciary, in the case of Atty. Mendoza, she culpably violated the Constitution,” the complaint read.
In her memorandum, which the groups cited in their complaint, Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro noted “the frequent foreign travels” of Atty. Maria Lourdes Oliveros, Sereno’s staff, “purportedly with funding support for ‘airfare, accommodation and other related travel expenses’ from the host or organizers of the travel as approved by the Chief Justice and two Division chairpersons.”
“The Court has not delegated its power to approve authority to travel abroad on ‘official business’ of court officials and personnel which entitles them to their salaries, per diems and allowances as distinguished from ‘official time,’ which entitles those concerned only to their salaries for the duration of the authorized travel abroad,” the complaint read.
“Again, respondent has arrogated unto herself the power of the Court en banc to approve such authority to travel abroad. This is another culpable violation of the Constitution,” it added.