MANILA: Newly appointed Supreme Court (SC) Justice Francis Jardeleza was urged yesterday to inhibit himself from the resolution of the case involving the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Programme (DAP).
Rep Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna, one of the groups that questioned DAP before the SC, said the “dice would be loaded against the petitioners” if Jardeleza participates in the resolution of the government’s motion for the SC to reconsider its decision on the DAP.
“As solicitor-general, he was the lawyer of the president and the officials and agencies involved. He justified and defended the DAP,” he said. The SC had struck down at least four practices under the programme as unconstitutional, including the declaration of savings before the end of the fiscal year.
Isabela Rep Rodolfo Albano III, a member of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives like Colmenares, supported the call for Jardeleza’s inhibition in the Disbursement Acceleration Programme case. However, Albano said people should give every new appointee to the SC the benefit of the doubt.
He reminded his colleagues that recent appointees of President Aquino – Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Justices Marvic Leonen and Estela Perlas-Bernabe – voted against the Disbursement Acceleration Programme.
“That only shows that they are independent-minded, even if they are appointees of the President. All of them in fact are presidential appointees because it is the President who is empowered to choose the members of the Supreme Court from among nominees presented by the Judicial and Bar Council,” he said.
He said an appointment signed by an incumbent President is no guarantee that the appointee would not vote against the appointing power.
He noted that some appointees of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also went against her. Detained Sen Jinggoy Estrada said Jardeleza is a better choice compared to Commission on Audit Chairman Grace Pulido-Tan.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
