Vitug Vlogs: The extreme Justice Abad

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler’s editor at large Marites Vitug goes into the character of the outspoken Reproductive Health law critic in the Supreme Court.

Here’s her video blog.

It was one of the most heated exchanges I’ve witnessed in the Supreme
Court—and it revealed the character of Justice Roberto Abad.
In this week’s oral arguments on the RH law, Abad looked down on his nemesis, Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza.
Complete with power-point slides, Abad tried to show contraceptives kill the unborn.
When Jardeleza disagreed, the justice laughed, as if mocking the counsel for government.
Abad is the most vociferous anti-RH justice.
In the Court, he’s known to be impulsive.
One of his most famous outbursts was against then junior Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
It had to with the plagiarism scandal, when a decision penned by one justice was found to have lifted heavily from academic journals.
Abad joined the majority in clearing the justice and railed against Sereno for her “self-righteous” dissent.
This was unprecedented.
And now, after facing a wall—because Jardeleza stood his ground– Abad dropped all pretenses of clinging to the law.
He likened the advocates of the RH law to Hitler, out to exterminate the poor.
Abad said, “The law targets the poor because they’re inconvenient to us.”
He may not have known it then, but at that moment, he stood by Francisco Tatad who called the RH law “genocide.”
And I thought the Supreme Court was all about upholding the law.
This is Marites Vitug for VitugVlogs. – Rappler.com