{"id":139798,"date":"2017-12-17T22:11:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T03:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=139798"},"modified":"2017-12-17T22:11:30","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T03:11:30","slug":"psywar-campaign-wont-weaken-impeachment-defense-sereno-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/17\/psywar-campaign-wont-weaken-impeachment-defense-sereno-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Psywar campaign’ won’t weaken impeachment defense: Sereno camp"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chief<\/a>
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. Aranal Sereno. (Photo<\/a> by Center for Strategic & International Studies\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014<\/strong>\u00a0The camp of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno shrugged off the apparent \u201cpsywar campaign\u201d used to condition the mind of the public by camps seeking to remove her from the Supreme Court (SC), after several impeachment hearings failed to prove that the allegations against the top magistrate were impeachable offenses.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Winnie Salumbides, one of Sereno’s spokespersons, said statements made inside and outside the hearings of the House justice committee are purely hearsay, personal opinions, innuendos and optics to persuade the public into thinking that there\u2019s basis to oust the top magistrate.<\/p>\n

Salumbides made the statement in response to the possible attendance of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, in the resumption of impeachment proceedings against the Chief Justice next month.<\/p>\n

A news report, however, said that Carpio, one of those who opposed the appointment of then Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza to the SC as associate justice in connection with the Itu Aba issue, had yet to make a decision and even wrote the committee to clarify the scope of issues upon which his testimony is sought.<\/p>\n

“Everyday they float new names and personalities of those who are supposed to testify against the Chief Justice,\u201d Salumbides said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can only conclude that this is all part of the propaganda to make it appear that Chief Justice Sereno is losing support among her colleagues in the Supreme Court,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Three of the 15-member tribunal- Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Francis Jardeleza and Noel Tija had testified in the House committee regarding Sereno\u2019s supposed high-handedness in dealing with high court\u2019s administrative matters.<\/p>\n

Salumbides, however, said their testimonies were \u201cpersonal and administrative matters that have been threshed out by the Supreme Court en banc, as these primarily pertained to its own internal rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go back to the crucial question: are those really impeachable offenses? Definitely they are not,\u201d Salumbides said, as he urged the justice panel to expedite the House proceedings and transmit the appropriate articles to the Senate, which will sit as an impeachment court, to ascertain whether there is basis to remove the Chief Justice from office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf some members of the panel feel there\u2019s ‘overwhelming\u2019 evidence against the Chief Justice, they should simply elevate the proceedings to the Senate. There is no good reason to delay,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as it appears, the committee still wants to continue gathering evidence or build up Gadon\u2019s case as some members probably know that the allegations are baseless and will not prosper,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The impeachment complaint was filed by lawyer Larry Gadon against Sereno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014\u00a0The camp of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno shrugged off the apparent \u201cpsywar campaign\u201d used to condition the mind of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":79817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[12033,39303,39304],"class_list":["post-139798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-chief-justice-maria-lourdes-sereno","tag-psywar-campaign-wont-weaken-impeachment-defense-sereno-camp","tag-psywar-campaign","mauthors-christopher-lloyd-caliwan","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}