{"id":155597,"date":"2018-03-08T02:39:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T07:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=155597"},"modified":"2018-03-08T02:39:53","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T07:39:53","slug":"house-votes-to-impeach-cj-sereno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/03\/08\/house-votes-to-impeach-cj-sereno\/","title":{"rendered":"House votes to impeach CJ Sereno"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_154768\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-154768\" style=\"width: 415px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sereno.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-154768\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sereno.jpg\" alt=\"FILE: Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno took her standpoint as she once again refuses to follow calls for her to resign. (PNA photo)\" width=\"415\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sereno.jpg 415w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sereno-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-154768\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FILE: Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno\u00a0 (PNA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Just like its committee head hinted last month, the House committee on Justice voted on March 8 to oust Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice (CJ) Maria Lourdes Sereno.<\/p>\n<p>With a vote of 38-2 with zero abstentions, the Justice committee ruled the top magistrate to be impeached from her position, because of allegations on the apparent misdeclaration of her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN).<\/p>\n<p>Representatives Kaka Bag-ao of Dinagat Islands and Kit Belmonte of Quezon City were the dissenters.<\/p>\n<p>The head of the House committee on Justice Oriental Mindoro Representative Rey Umali said, \u201c<em>Lahat [ng ebidensiya ay] malakas naman eh. \u2018Yung<\/em> SALN, <em>\u2018yung sa<\/em> tax, \u2018<em>yung<\/em> violation <em>ng<\/em> collegiality <em>ng<\/em> Supreme Court, <em>siguro \u2018yung<\/em> clustering. \u2018<em>Yung iba siguro iko<\/em>-combine <em>na lang <\/em>into one article (All evidence are strong. The SALN, tax, the violation on the collegiality of the Supreme Court, maybe on the clustering. Others may be combined into one article),\u201d in a press briefing.<\/p>\n<p>In late February, Umali already hinted that the impeachment case could be escalated to the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Ganoon po ang nakikita ko kasi maraming na<\/em>-establish <em>kami<\/em> during the hearing <em>at marami nang nalinawan doon sa <\/em>issues. <em>At ngayon hindi na nila tinitingnan \u2018yung<\/em> issue being hearsay <em>dahil walong<\/em> Justice <em>po \u2018yong humarap na masasakit po ang sinabi patungkol po kay<\/em> Chief Justice (That is what we are seeing because we have established a lot during the hearings and a lot of the lawmakers already found clarity with the issues. Now they are not looking at the issue as a hearsay because eight Justices have surfaced against the Chief Justice),\u201d Umali said in an interview with DZBB on February 26.<\/p>\n<p>However, Sereno\u2019s camp said that the vote was a not a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Her lawyer Jojo Lacanilao said, \u201cThis is not the end of it all, and the burden of proving the case is on the House, for the House to prove that the Chief Justice should be removed. We believe the Chief Justice is innocent and she can prove her innocence in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just like its committee head hinted last month, the House committee on Justice voted on March 8 to oust Supreme &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":154768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[19092,28564,47833,15694,1144],"class_list":["post-155597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-house-committee-on-justice","tag-kaka-bag-ao","tag-kit-belmonte","tag-maria-lourdes-sereno","tag-supreme-court","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155597","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=155597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}