The Chief

All justices of the Supreme Court finally made public their statements of assets, liabilities and net worth yesterday, after Solar News, which requested the SALNs, met all the requirements.

The Supreme Court announced the lifting of its secrecy policy on the SALNs shortly after Renato Corona was ousted as chief justice. SC insiders told me the SALNs could have been released any time after the policy was lifted if the requirements were met by a requesting party.

But because the initial release occurred under the watch of new SC “Chief” Ma. Lourdes Sereno, and because she kicked off the disclosure with her own SALN, she will get credit for the reform.

The heads of the three SC divisions are also called “chief” by the members, but of course it’s the chief justice who gets to be addressed most often by that term.

Judging from her first week as the Chief, it looks like Sereno will have to work on earning the honorific and being called the primus inter pares.

The tradition of seniority in the SC is almost as deep as in the military. Sereno is not the most junior member of the tribunal although she is the youngest at 52. But with just two years in the high court and no previous experience as a trial judge, she is considered a newbie by several of her colleagues.

Nine of them skipped Sereno’s swearing-in by President Aquino last Saturday, even if Malacañang the previous day texted and called and texted all the justices, inviting them to attend the ceremony at Malacañang.

It wasn’t called a boycott, although some quarters called it a snub. Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who was in Cagayan de Oro when reached by Malacañang, returned to Manila Friday night but was among the no-shows at the Palace.

The ice continued as Sereno started her 18 years in her new job. SC justices traditionally gather for breakfast or lunch on the day of the en banc – when the entire tribunal meets to deliberate on certain cases.

On Tuesday, in her first en banc which started at past 10 a.m., there was no such gathering. Also absent on Monday was the traditional courtesy call on the new “Chief” in her office by the associate justices. Instead it was the Chief who started going around the offices, greeting SC employees. The justices did congratulate Sereno during the en banc, and then it was down to business – mostly “safe” issues, according to insiders.

It must be stressed that SC sessions, unlike those in Congress, are somber affairs, with bantering rare. It is an environment where personal animosities can go undetected; everything is all business. Insiders said that during Corona’s impeachment trial, there was no discussion during SC sessions about the unprecedented proceedings at the Senate.

Sereno is right in announcing a return to “dignified silence” among SC members, starting with herself. Members of the court of last resort, who have the final say on so many aspects of life in this country, should know enough to keep their mouths shut. Their opinions must be expressed only in their decisions.

Outside the court, however, SC members are also human and chat. Not all the talk is kept among themselves. Malacañang also has its share of chatty individuals. And so it is possible to piece together what goes on behind the scenes, including what went on in the process of selecting a chief justice.

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President Aquino, according to the grapevine, was armed with a “matrix” of important cases that were tackled by the SC in recent years, and the vote of each candidate in the “long shortlist” submitted to him by the Judicial and Bar Council.

Among the critical cases were those on cityhood wherein the SC flip-flopped a number of times, the establishment of the Truth Commission, the controversy over Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s midnight appointments, the SC order that would have allowed GMA to leave the country, matters involving big business, and of course the distribution and valuation of Hacienda Luisita.

While P-Noy knew how each candidate for chief justice voted in those cases, he asked them certain questions for clarification. With SC Justices Roberto Abad, Arturo Brion and Teresita de Castro, P-Noy wanted to know, according to the grapevine, how they reached the valuation for the sugar estate that was lower than what Hacienda Luisita Inc. wanted.

With Carpio, the top choice of the JBC, P-Noy no longer went into details, according to sources. Carpio was simply told that he had made too many enemies – big names with whom P-Noy still had to deal with for four more years.

Carpio, a taciturn man, turns 63 on Oct. 26. So far he has given no indication that he plans to go back to lucrative private practice. In his years as a member of the SC, his votes went against the interests of nearly every top businessman in this country.

People close to him told me he intended to stay on in the SC because he felt he had bigger battles ahead to fight.

With Sereno ensconced in the top SC post for the next 18 years, all SC members no longer expect any promotion from P-Noy. Unless they have given cause to be impeached, they can then vote according to their conscience, perhaps even against those special interests that P-Noy would rather not offend. People are hoping that in this sense, P-Noy has laid the groundwork for a truly independent Supreme Court.

Sereno herself is free to vote as she sees fit, unless she is the type who sees her appointment as a debt of gratitude that must be repaid.

There is, of course, impeachment, but Corona’s case showed that this is a recourse that cannot be employed lightly. Impeachment can tarnish the accuser as much as the accused if wielded indiscriminately.

For now, Sereno has reforms to implement. Her work will be easier if she can improve her relationship with her SC peers.

In a sense it’s good to be relatively unknown, since at this point, people are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. But forbearance in this country wears thin quickly. Within a year or two, Sereno must prove that the best man for the job is a woman, the relatively new kid on the SC block.