11 reasons why Sereno ouster is perfectly legal
In a post, Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino wrote eleven (11) reasons why the Supreme Court was correct in granting the Solicitor General's petition for quo warranto against then-Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
[1] The Supreme Court has ORIGINAL jurisdiction over petitions for Quo Warranto. (Art. VIII, 1987 Constitution)
[2] Nowhere in Rule 66 (Rules of Court) on Quo Warranto are impeachable officials excepted. In fact the rule expressly mentions "usurpation of public office" without qualifying "public office". Where the law does not distinguish, we do not.
[3] Impeachable officials are in fact subject to quo warranto proceedings as the Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal make clear.
[4] Nowhere in Philippine Jurisprudence have impeachable officials ever been excluded from the ambit of quo warranto.
[5] Article XI does NOT say that impeachment is the ONLY way of ousting an impeachable official. What it does say is that such an official MAY be removed by impeachment.
[6] Conviction following impeachment presupposes that one has been validly appointed and has committed an offense or a series of acts warranting impeachment under Article XI of the Constitution.
[7] But if one who lacks the qualifications is appointed, even without committing any impeachable act, then the remedy is quo warranto, otherwise there would no remedy against an unqualified or ineligible appointee.
[8] While the SALN issue is an issue raised against the CJ in relation to the impeachment complaint filed by Gadon, it also was raised by the SolGen as a qualification issue, because the Constitution makes "probity and integrity" requirements for appointment to the office of Chief Justice.
[9] The CJ herself in a dissent in the Corona Case articulated the position that failure to submit the SALN when this was required was tantamount to lack of integrity.
[10] The Senate's jurisdiction was NEVER trumped. Senate has jurisdiction to try an impeachment case only when Articles of Impeachment have been filed. So far, no article of impeachment has been filed by the House of Representatives.
[11] Furthermore, Senate has NO jurisdiction to pass upon a disqualification case. That is a judicial matter left to the courts.
Fr. Rannie did his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy degree at the Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas and graduated in 1978 summa cum laude. He went on to do a Master of Arts in Philosophy degree at the same university, completing it in 1981, summa cum laude. One year later, he was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy, major in Philosophy degree in 1988, summa cum laude, with a doctoral dissertation on human knowledge. At Columbia Pacific University (San Rafael, California), he completed his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, major in International Law in 1993. Since then, he has been a professor of law at the Cagayan Colleges Tuguegarao, College of Law.He is likewise professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Santo Tomas, and was recently appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Law, San Beda College. In the Winter Term of 1993, he was admitted as a Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in Belgium. Joining the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court in 1998, he became a Fellow of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2001, the Supreme Court sent him to the Federal Court of Australia as part of a team of Filipino jurists led by Mr. Justice Jose Vitug who completed a course on Commercial Law. In August of 2003, he did studies in Philosophy at Cambridge University, England.
He has authored books both in philosophy and in law. In philosophy, he wrote: A Philosophy of Education; A Philosophy of Law; and Man at Worship: A Philosophy of Religion. In law, he authored Peace on Earth: Issues in Public International Law; Intellectual Property Law: Comments and Annotations, now on its second edition; and Private International Law. He has also annotated for Supreme Court Reports Annotated and is a regular contributor to The Lawyers' Review. Among his lecture tours in philosophy were for the Taniguchi Foundation of Japan on Eco-Ethica. He did research on liturgy and canon law at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. He argued at a Demonstration Trial in Dublin, Republic of Ireland for the World Conference of Jurists in 2001 on an issue of international environmental law, where he also read a paper in jurisprudence.
Aside from heading the Academic Affairs Office, he chairs the Department of Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy of the Philippine Judicial Academy, and lectures for the MCLF, Program of the UP Institute of Judicial Administration (UP Law Complex). He is Parish Priest of St. Rose of Lima Parish. He is the son of Justice Hilarion L. Aquino, a retired member of the Court of Appeals, and Attorney Leticia P. Callangan-Aquino, Dean, College of Law of the Cagayan State University. (SOURCE: http://www.central.com.ph/bookstoreplus/authordetails/111/)
Maria Lourdes Aranal Sereno is a Filipino lawyer and judge who was the de facto 24th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines from 2012 until May 11, 2018.
