By Atty. Howie Calleja
On Thursday, the House committee on justice is set to begin hearing the impeachment complaint against Associate Justice Marvic Leonen. Though the hearings have yet to begin, the impeachment process is already rife with peculiarities and procedural infirmities.
House rules dictate that the Speaker must refer the impeachment complaint to the plenary’s Order of Business within 10 session days from its filing. Thereafter, the committee on rules would refer the complaint to the committee on justice within 3 days. However, the complaint was filed in the first week of December and is only now being taken up by the committee on justice. Having been more than 5 months since the complaint was filed, this is certainly a procedural concern.
The peculiar nature of this case stems from two instances: the endorser of the complaint and the time of its filing. The endorser of the complaint is none other than the cousin of a man who has a bone to pick with Justice Leonen – former Senator Marcos. It can be recalled that Leonen was the ponente in the case dismissing Marcos’ 2016 election protest in its entirety. Barely a month before the current complaint was filed, Marcos himself sought for Leonen’s inhibition, as officer-in-charge, from his election case. Are we supposed to believe that his own cousin suddenly developed a taste for justice against a member of the Supreme Court in the midst of this hullabaloo?
The next peculiarity comes in the form of the words of the Senior Deputy Majority Leader when, in response to queries on the delay, he stated it would be referred to the respective committees “when the time is right for it.” When is the time ripe for an attack on the judiciary? What is the difference between referring the case in December versus referring it in May? Could it be that they were waiting for the Marcos election protest to be finalized? Perhaps to wait for a time closer to the filing of the certificate of candidacies? It is obvious this is no more than a chess game between Marcos’ camp and anyone who dare call his attempts at power-grabbing what it is: a farce. But no one is less of a pawn than one who sits on the highest Court of our land.
After the 2018 case against the former Chief Justice Sereno, it seems that it has been normalized to use the judiciary as political pawns. But this is an extremely dangerous game. After all, the only arsenal in the defense of the legal profession is respect. If the executive commands the military and congress holds the power of the purse, the third branch of the government relies heavily on the trust of the people whose rights it aims to uphold. This is the reason why a Code of Professional Responsibility exists for lawyers and members of the judiciary, because of the immense power that comes with knowledge of the law. The judiciary is imbued with the responsibility to the entire public to dispense justice and search for the truth. Without respect for the highest Court, what hope do we have to trust in lady justice herself?
It is even more laughable that this impeachment complaint comes before the great Associate Justice Leonen, on an issue of his SALN, when the President himself has not released his to the public. What more his openly treasonous acts in the failure to protect the West Philippine Sea? But we’ve now come to expect that his pro-Chinese and anti-kabaybayan rhetoric won’t cause Congress to lift a finger.
An impeachment against the President could fall under a number of grounds, including culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, and betrayal of public trust. Wouldn’t the legitimized killings of more than 27,000 people without due process suffice? Or the failure to assert the Hague’s ruling on the West Philippine Sea? What about the blatant corruption of his hand-picked appointees, including PhilHealth head Morales? Maybe the politicizing the license of the ABS-CBN to have 12,000 people lose their jobs in the middle of a global pandemic? We could even look at the fact that the Philippine economy has slumped to its lowest ever, and we are now in the worse recession in our entire history? Perhaps we will draw the line at the failure to support the most vulnerable of our people during this pandemic by not providing financial support or social amelioration programs? Or at least look at the fact that the pandemic management still has not improved – despite it being the world’s longest and strictest lockdown. There is absolutely no chance for him to repair his legacy, so will we allow him to continue his control?
Associate Justice Leonen has become the scapegoat for a ridiculously drawn-out protest with no merit, but he, and the entirety of the judiciary, should never be made to be a pawn in this chess game where the king and his allies make moves towards the destruction of our country.
