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SANTIAGO PRESSES FIGHT VS SUPREME COURT

PURSUING her fight against the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) which had dropped her from its list of candidates for Supreme Court Chief Justice, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago yesterday urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo not to appoint a permanent replacement for Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban but a temporary one when the latter retires tomorrow.

In a letter to the President, which she read into the Senate record, Santiago said Ms Arroyo should appoint an acting Chief Justice because the judiciary’s nomination process was a failure and was tainted with corruption.

Santiago was to take her battle to Malacañang last night, where she was to meet with the President.

Santiago also advised Ms Arroyo not to appoint Associate Justice Reynato Puno Chief Justice, despite the latter being the most senior of the four candidates for the position.

“If you were to appoint Mr. Puno, the public will suspect -- with good reason -- that he had unlawfully promised to decide in favor of the administration the controversial imminent case on the constitutionality of a constituent assembly (Con-ass). Thus, the Supreme Court and the constituent assembly would both lose all credibility,” Santiago said.

The woman senator was referring to the battle for Con-ass in Congress that the Arroyo administration was still fighting for in order to amend the Constitution despite having lost the case in the Panganiban Supreme Court.

Santiago instead suggested that an incumbent justice who was not on the short list of nominees be appointed acting Chief Justice until a “valid nomination process” could be undertaken. She said she would withdraw her own nomination if there were such another screening.

“I will ask the President when I see her [tonight] to appoint an acting Chief Justice. I’m going to tell her the JBC has lost all logic, all reason (for its existence),” Santiago told reporters.

On Monday, a seething Santiago had made mincemeat of Panganiban and the JBC in a cardiac-inducing privilege speech after the JBC had dropped her and Justice Antonio Carpio from the short list of nominees for Chief Justice.

A furious Santiago tagged Panganiban as the mastermind of a “thinly-veiled” plot to drop her from contention because she was a Supreme Court outsider. She said she was also excluded because ex-Senate President Jovito Salonga, Panganiban’s former boss, was Ms Arroyo’s nemesis.

In her letter to the President, Santiago told Ms Arroyo the nomination process was attended by irregularities and should be repeated.

She narrated how Panganiban had forced her to waive her public interview by the JBC after the five incumbent justices who were also candidates refused to submit to the process.

“I did not spontaneously waive my right … I was compelled to do so,” she said, adding that after she did not go through with the interview, the eight JBC members went to see her in the holding room to thank her for her “cooperation.”

Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan and Senator Edgardo Angara, however, expressed reservations about Santiago’s proposal to appoint an acting Chief Justice.

Pangilinan, ex-officio member of the JBC, said having an acting Chief Justice would place him or her in a situation where pressure could be applied on them by Malacañang if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Angara said there was no precedent for an acting Chief Justice and this should be avoided for the sake of stability in the judiciary.

For its part, Supreme Court spokesperson Ismael Khan Jr. said the high tribunal was unfazed by Santiago’s tirade because the court was more credible than the senator.

Khan said the court would rather leave it to the public to decide on Santiago’s accusations.

“Well, it will depend on how the public will react to that,” he said.

Admitting Santiago’s remarks were “uncalled for,” including describing members of the tribunal as “idiots,” Khan said the Supreme Court was not bound to react on them because they were uttered during a privilege speech delivered in the Senate.

“Whether the court feels maligned or not, it will depend on how the people will take it,” he said. With Armand N. Nocum
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