Change for the worse — maybe

“The way it looks, the JBC should be abolished and, perhaps, the better way is for the President to appoint with the legislature having the power to confirm or reject the presidential appointees.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who is due to retire in two days, suggested that the Philippine Constitution be amended for the Philippine President of the Republic to no longer become the sole appointing power for justices of the Supreme Court (SC).

He said the Charter should be rewritten with the three branches of government — the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, represented by the SC — equally sharing the power to appoint justices to the High Court.

The SC gets a 1/3 vote, with the Executive getting the same 1/3 vote and the Legislature getting an equal share in the appointment of justices.

The outspoken Carpio also called for the President, who now has appointed the majority of SC justices, to consider a candidate’s independence in choosing the next High Court chief justice, saying: “I’ve always said that the number one quality should be independence… Because independence goes to the very core of being a judge.”

He added, “A judge has to be impartial and, being impartial, you must be your own man. You must be independent,” he added.

Justice Carpio, an appointee of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, almost immediately after then sitting President Joseph “Erap” Estrada was ousted by the usual Yellows, Reds and the “unholy” whites, along with interfering Uncle Sam, hardly ever came up with such a suggestion during the reigns of Arroyo and Noynoy Aquino.

Even as the retiring justice talked of the importance of independence and impartiality of a justice, he kept his silence even when the yellow president appointed Ma.

Lourdes Sereno, who certainly can’t be said to have been independent or impartial. She was, in fact, a violator of the law on the submission of statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, apart from faking some of her SALN and apart, too, from her being utterly unqualified for the high SC seat.

Before the EDSA revolt that propelled Corazon Aquino to the presidency, all appointments to the judiciary were made by the President. But then, the appointees, despite being the choice of the President, were always subjected to confirmation by the Commission on Appointments (CA), which was good, as confirmations were public.

At that time in our history, Congress generally confirmed appointments made by the President provided three criteria are met, which are that the nominee possesses the qualifications prescribed by the law; no serious charges are filed impeaching his integrity; and that no member of Congress expresses a strong objection to the appointment.

When Cory Aquino assumed the presidency, she became an absolute dictator, having turned herself into becoming the sole law and the sole government. She also wrote her own “freedom constitution” even as she was still enjoying the full powers of an absolute dictator.

Immediately after she was propelled to the presidency, she not only abolished Congress, but she also demanded the resignation of all the SC justices, including the then chief justice, and replaced them with her own choices — most of whom supported her during the election and participated in the coup the yellows staged.

A new Constitution was then drafted by her handpicked delegates — all of whom were her EDSA supporters, save for one or two. That Constitution, known as the 1987 Charter, introduced the new way of investigating candidates for the judiciary, through the Judicial Bar and Council. Touted as an independent constitutional body, it was only later discovered that it had functioned not as an independent body but as a politicized body that moreover closed its eyes to criminal and administrative violations, as the JBC was found later to have qualified Sereno, who was clearly unqualified for the chief justice seat and was later ousted by the SC on a quo warranto case.

It is also of record that despite the evidence of Sereno being unqualified, as well as her having falsified her SALN and much more, Justice Carpio dissented from the majority decision to oust Sereno, who was clearly appointed by her yellow patron, Aquino, for his lifelong protection, as Sereno would have served for some 30 years on the High Bench.

The way it looks, the JBC should be abolished and, perhaps, the better way is for the President to appoint with the legislature having the power to confirm or reject the presidential appointees. As for the SC having equal authority, what makes the SC justices think that they aren’t political? Think of the disgraceful chief Justice Hilario Davide and, later, Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban? They were not only political. They were prime violators of the 1987 Constitution when they, along with the yellow mob, unconstitutionally ousted a constitutionally elected president who had not resigned, was not permanently ill, and was not convicted by the Senate. Yet the SC, under the highly political Davide and Panganiban, as well as the other SC justices, ruled that Estrada had “constructively resigned,” which does not exist in the Charter and, to stress, the High Court then even introduced its own evidence, which is never done. And what evidence it was: a newspaper column in newsprint of a claimed diary written by a third party and not by Estrada.

Chances are, however, that constitutional changes won’t come about. Filipinos are not ready for such changes, which may even bring about an outcome worse than today’s way of appointing SC justices.