Corona, 3 others face JBC today

MANILA, Philippines - Senior Associate Justice Renato Corona and three other magistrates will face the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) today in an unprecedented public interview of Supreme Court justices vying for the chief justice post during the constitutional ban on midnight appointments.

Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said all four candidates confirmed they would attend the interview that will start at 9 a.m. at the SC building in Baguio City.

Apart from Corona, the three others are SC Associate Justices Arturo Brion and Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and acting Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval.

Brion and Corona will be the first to face the eight-man council, to be followed by De Castro and Sandoval. Marquez said it is possible that all four would face the JBC today.

The interview was originally scheduled for two days, but two candidates - Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales - have earlier manifested they would not attend the interview.

Carpio and Morales said they were no longer interested in the post because of their belief that President Arroyo cannot make the appointment under the law.

The JBC is chaired by Chief Justice Reynato Puno. Its members are:

Justice Secretary Alberto Agra, Sen. Francis Escudero, Rep. Matias Defensor Jr., retired SC justice Regino Hermosisima Jr., UST Dean Emeritus Amado Dimayuga, Justice Aurora Santiago Lagman and IBP representative lawyer J. Conrado Castro.

It would be the first time the JBC would interview sitting justices of the SC vying for the chief justice post.

This, however, was questioned by Palace lawyer Romulo Macalintal, who believes there is no need to interview incumbent justices of the SC in the selection of the replacement of Chief Justice Puno who retires on May 17.

“The JBC has never interviewed nominees who were incumbent justices of the SC, There is no sound reason to depart from this established practice,” he told The STAR.

Macalintal believes that this issue was already settled by the SC in 2005 during the retirement of then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.

He recalled that on Nov. 28, 2005, before Chief Justice Davide retired in December that year, 12 associate justices of the SC wrote a letter to Davide, then chair of the JBC, opposing the plan of the council to call three justices nominated for the CJ post for public interview.

The JBC wanted to interview then Justices Leonardo Quisumbing, Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno but the 12 justices had said “it is wrong for JBC to interview these sitting justices because the JBC is subordinate to the High Tribunal.”

Macalintal said the SC already stated before that “it is inherently wrong when members of a subordinate body can accept or reject as nominees members of a superior body (SC) supervising such subordinate body (JBC).”

“I don’t know if they already forgot the Davide position and subject themselves to interview of JBC,” Macalintal lamented, adding that Justices Corona, Carpio and Carpio- Morales were among those who signed that letter.

Macalintal questioned the interview after the JBC opposed the ruling of the SC last March 17 allowing the President to name the next chief justice in its comment to appeals on the ruling filed by various parties.

The JBC said that while it would abide by the order of the SC for it to submit shortlist to Mrs. Arroyo on or before May 17, it would do so “in accord to its own constitutional mandate and in line with its implementing rules and regulations.”

The collegial body also submitted its belief that the SC ruling on consolidated petitions involving the chief justice appointment was premature.

With the premise that the JBC is subordinate to the SC, Macalintal said there is no reason for the JBC to question the ruling of the High Tribunal.