The Judicial and Bar Council’s 8 choices for chief justice are dominated by insiders, incumbent Supreme Court justices. But since the process opened up to include those who are not from the Court, the JBC sprinkled its list with 3 outsiders.

This indicates the strong pull of tradition. The most senior member of the Court is usually picked to lead it. Only once in the past, during the occupation of the country by the Japanese forces, was an outsider appointed as chief justice. As Chief Justice Cesar Bengzon said in a speech in 1961, “the conqueror was not then aware or bound by the precedent.”

By deciding to give President Aquino 8 names, the JBC played safe and included all those who got 5, a majority vote. In the past, the JBC usually sent a list of 5. If the list became too long, the members did a second round of voting to further prune the list. But to avoid making tough choices this time, the council left it at that.  

Let’s do an instant vetting of the 8 and start with the insiders. Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio and Justice Ma Lourdes Sereno used to belong to the minority in the Court. Both of them stood on the same side in crucial cases:

• They voted to uphold the Truth Commission.
• They dissented in the grant of a temporary restraining order against the justice department to allow former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to leave the country.
• They dissented in the decision to stop the House of Representatives from proceeding with the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez.

Carpio, of course, has a much longer history with the Court while Sereno is a junior justice. In the more than 2 months that he’s been acting chief justice, Carpio has opened up the secretive Court, making it the most transparent ever in its over 100 years of existence. Budget accountability reports, which were never submitted to the executive department, are now on the Court’s Web site.

The day after Renato Corona was convicted, Carpio called for a special en banc meeting to push for making the assets statements of the justices public. The Court unanimously agreed to release the SALNs (statements of assets, liabilities and net worth) of justices and judges but accompanied this with guidelines.

Brion, Abad, De Castro

Justices Arturo Brion, Roberto Abad, and Teresita de Castro are perceived to be pro-Arroyo. They were part of the majority who allowed Arroyo to leave the country supposedly for medical reasons. They also voted with the majority in stopping a co-equal branch from continuing the impeachment process against Gutierrez. In the case of the Truth Commission, Abad, however, differed with them and voted in its favor.

During the impeachment of Corona, these 3 justices joined the majority in disallowing Court staff from testifying as well as stifling the release of some information to the prosecutors.

They may also be classified as conservative. In the plagiarism case of Justice Mariano del Castillo, these 3 justices were part of the group that cleared him and blamed Microsoft, instead, for the lapses.

Individually, here’s what stands out, from my view:

• Brion is a stickler for rules; he chastised his colleagues for violating the Court’s internal rules in at least 2 cases.
• Abad defended the Court’s flip-flops in 2 of his opinions.

De Castro carried the torch in the Court against the UP professors who asked that Del Castillo resign because he plagiarized a decision.

Jardeleza, Zamora, Villanueva

It’s more difficult to assess the outsiders because they don’t have a body of decisions we can study. But let’s just see a few of the choices these men made in their lives.

Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza has impeccable academic credentials. However, when he worked with the conglomerate San Miguel Corp, he was associated with a Marcos crony, the controversial Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. (Disclosure: Jardeleza was my lawyer in my first-ever libel case.) When Jardeleza became solicitor general, he assured the coconut farmers that he will be fair.

Former Congressman Ronaldo Zamora’s political choices include Ferdinand Marcos — he worked with the Office of the President during the early years of martial law — and deposed President Joseph Estrada. There is no doubt about mental agility; Zamora is bright and smart.

Cesar Villanueva chairs the newly formed Governance Commission for the GOCCs (government-owned and controlled corporations). While he has impressive academic credentials, Villanueva, as dean of the Ateneo law school, chose to keep quiet during the debate on the “midnight appointment” of a chief justice by President Arroyo; and did not take a stand during the plagiarism scandal that hit the Court.

His law firm, Villanueva Gabionza and De Santos, defended Cristina Corona in the cases she filed against her relatives, the Basa-Guidotes, in the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the trial courts. Cristina took control of the family corporation, the Basa-Guidote Enterprises, Inc., through questionable means. – Rappler.com