SC chief, Carpio asked to inhibit selves from PI case

Advocates of the move to shift to a parliamentary system of government asked Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Associate Justice Antonio Carpio to inhibit from deliberations on the proposed people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution.

In a 13-page motion, lawyers Ferdinand Topacio and Eliseo Ocampo said that the two justices should not participate in deliberations of the Supreme Court as they have already shown impartiality.

Topacio cited that Rule 3.12 of the Code of Judicial Conduct provides that a judge should take no part in a proceeding where his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

He accused Panganiban of maneuvering the SC’s vote on the proposed people’s initiative of Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) last Oct. 25.

Voting 8-7, the High Court declared the people’s initiative to change the charter is unconstitutional because the leaders of Sigaw and ULAP failed to include in the signature sheets their proposed amendments to the Constitution.

Panganiban’s vote was said to be the swing vote. His wife, Leny Carpio Panganiban, herself has reportedly cheered publicly for those opposing the people’s initiative during the deliberations.

Topacio said it is also disturbing that according to some reports, Panganiban had actually campaigned among his colleagues to reject the people’s initiative.

He added that the pressures, which Panganiban himself has cited prior to the SC ruling last Oct. 25, make it imperative for him to refrain from judging such an important issue as Charter change.

Carpio, on the other hand, was said to have "spiced up his decision with condemnatory and virulent conclusions and remarks that do not speak well of a magisterial document and which glaringly betrays a pre-existing extreme." — Jose Rodel Clapano