By Moira Encina
Eagle News Service
For Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, the impeachment complaints filed against four candidates vying for the Chief Justice post have no effect on their nomination.
In issuing the statement, Guevarra, also a member of the Judicial and Bar Council, contradicted Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who said Supreme Court Justices Lucas Bersamin, Teresita De Castro, Diosdado Peralta and Andres Reyes Jr. would be disqualified from vying for the post left vacated by Maria Lourdes Sereno on May 11 in the wake of the impeachment complaints filed against them.
The impeachment complaints, which were filed a day before the JBC was slated to vote on whom to include in the shortlist of candidates for the post of Chief Justice, stem from the seven SC justices’ vote to oust Sereno.
Lagman said he did not charge Samuel Martires even if he also voted for Sereno’s ouster as he was no longer a member of the SC.
Martires was recently appointed as the new Ombudsman.
According to Lagman, an impeachment complaint was “worse” than an administrative case.
But Guevarra said an impeachment complaint “is not the same as a criminal or administrative complaint in the ordinary sense.”
Under JBC rules, an applicant to a post in the judiciary is disqualified if he or she is facing a criminal or administrative case.
President Rodrigo Duterte has 90 days from the day the Chief Justice post was vacated to appoint a new Supreme Court head.