Puno, Quisumbing top bets for CJ; Miriam, Carpio out

Supreme Court Associate Justices Reynato Puno, Leonardo Quisumbing, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago and Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez are the front-runners for the post of chief justice that would become vacant on Thursday.

Puno topped the list submitted to President Arroyo by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) yesterday.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said the JBC had voted to disqualify Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago from the race to succeed Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban who is retiring on Dec. 7.

"But that was the result of the voting," he said. "I moved that all six be forwarded to Malacañang. But I was outvoted. So we proceeded to the secret voting."

Carpio, the most junior among the nominees, was the author of the Supreme Court ruling that junked the petition for a people’s initiative to change the Constitution and allow for a shift to a parliamentary system.

Puno wrote the dissenting opinion.

Gonzalez said the JBC was set to submit yesterday the names of Puno, Quisumbing, Ynares-Santiago and Sandoval-Gutierrez to President Arroyo.

Gonzalez said Puno and Quisumbing each got seven votes, while Ynares-Santiago and Gutierrez both got five votes.

"It was the voting, a secret voting," he said. "They (Senator Santiago and Carpio) did not make it to the five."

Gonzalez said it was retired Justice Regino Hermosisima who suggested –he was supported by other JBC members –that only the names of nominees who will get at least five votes be submitted to Mrs. Arroyo.

"The rule was only those who received not less than five votes," he said. "Justice Hermosisima who was the one who moved for that and the members agreed."

Sen. Joker Arroyo has defended the decision of the five senior associate justices of the Supreme Court to stay away from the JBC’s public interview last Wednesday.

"Let us insulate them from a marketplace exercise. They deserve better," he added.

Puno, Quisumbing, Ynares-Santiago, Sandoval-Gutierrez and Carpio snubbed the public interview conducted by the JBC at the Supreme Court.

Senator Arroyo said there was merit in the position of the five justices not to undergo the first ever public interview for candidates for chief justice.

The five did not apply for the position and were merely listed automatically because they were the most senior and therefore entitled to be considered "consistent with practice and tradition," he added.

Senator Arroyo said that the need for a new interview may no longer be needed since they already went through the process when they were candidates for associate justices.

"The position of chief justice is the highest appointee of the President," he said." He has to be accorded respect and deference."

Senator Arroyo said the candidates may be asked on their positions on controversial political issues such as Charter change, the constituent assembly being pushed by the House of Representatives, the possible reduction of the powers of the Supreme Court when the Constitution is amended and the involvement of the Supreme Court in economic issues.

"A fresh candidate who has not sat in the High Court before may be freely asked these questions but not a sitting justice whose judicial philosophy is known because of his opinions which are published," he said.

The justices may even be asked to explain their decision on the people’s initiative petition case, he added.

The proposal of Sen. Francis Pangilinan, a JBC member, to disqualify Puno, Quisumbing, Ynares-Santiago, Sandoval-Gutierrez and Carpio, who snubbed the public interview last Nov. 29, was defeated during the voting yesterday, Gonzalez said.

Panganiban, ex-officio JBC chairman, was compelled to adjourn the public interview after the five senior justices failed to appear.

The JBC has no power to require the Supreme Court justices vying for the post of chief justice to be present during the public interview, he added.

Under the law, the JBC must select from a list of nominees, usually the most senior Supreme Court justices, or a legal luminary, who is an "outsider."

After a vote, the JBC would submit the names its members had picked to the President, who will choose from among them the next chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Santiago accused Panganiban yesterday of "plotting" her removal from the shortlist of candidates for chief justice.

"There was a plot to disqualify me from the vacancy, from the soon-to-be-vacated post of chief justice, on the suspicion that I am as I am perceived to be an intimate political ally of the President. Once nominated, I would certainly, be appointed," she said.

Santiago said she was not interested in being named as chief justice "if I am going to be surrounded by idiots."

"Let it be in another environment but not in the Supreme Court of idiots," she said

Santiago said she already told Mrs. Arroyo that she would rather stay at the Senate "because I prefer the company of my colleagues at the Senate anytime, any day, any hour to the custody of those idiots in the Supreme Court."

During a 30-minute privilege speech at the Senate, Santiago said the Supreme Court justices and the JBC might have feared she would get the post of chief justice and support the state-sponsored moves to amend the Constitution.

"I spit in the face of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and his cohorts in the Supreme Court," she said. "I am not angry, Mr. President. I am irate! I am furious! I am foaming at the mouth. I am hitting the roof! I am homicidal. I am suicidal! I am ballistic! I am insulted! I am humiliated. I am abased. I am degraded. And not only that, I feel like I am throwing up to be living my middle years in the country of this nature." —With Sheila Crisostomo, Christina Mendez