THE camp of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Tuesday rejected the claim in the impeachment complaint against her that she was liable for the delay in the release of the survivorship benefits of the spouses of deceased justices and judges.
Lawyer Jojo Lacanilao said there was no factual basis for the allegation made by lawyer Lorenzo Gadon in his impeachment complaint that Sereno sat on the applications for survivorship benefits before her office.
“The Chief Justice did not intentionally delay action on petitions for retirement and/or survivorship benefits, which applications are in the first place required to be decided by the Supreme Court as a collegial body,” Lacanilao said in a statement.
He made his statement even as Court Administrator Midas Marquez confirmed Gadon’s allegations that Sereno was responsible for the long delays in the release of the benefits due the surviving spouses of deceased judges and justices.
Testifying before the House’s justice committee, Marquez said that, before the creation of the Special Committee on Civil Service and Retirement Benefits and two related TWGs, the high court normally issued its decision on the petitions for such benefits in two to three weeks’ time.
In his impeachment complaint against Sereno, Gadon claims that Sereno violated the constitution by delaying action on the petitions for the release of such benefits.
After the committee was created and the TWG was organized, umaabot ng halos dalawang taon bago maaksyunan ang kanilang application,” Marquez told the committee. The committee was created via Memorandum Order 43-2015.
Lacanilao said Sereno even took action to address the concerns of the surviving spouses of the members of the judiciary.
“The Chief Justice is sympathetic with the plight not just of retirees in the judiciary, but of the people who long for an expeditious resolution of their cases. To this end, she has even instituted measures to rationalize and expedite the very process respecting retirement benefits that Complainant assails,” Lacanilao said.
Lacanilao also said Sereno was not the one who created the technical working group to review the applications for survivorship benefits, contrary to the testimony of Marquez during the hearing of the House justice committee on Tuesday.
He said the TWG was created upon the request of the high court’s special committee on retirement and civil service benefits through Memorandum Order 43-2015 dated 16 November 2015, and approved by Sereno and the chairmen of the two other divisions of the high court, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr.
“CJ Sereno merely implemented the terms of the memorandum creating the special committee since it is empowered to recommend the creation of sub-committees to discharge its functions,” Lacanilao said.
Under the memorandum, the special committee has the power to propose policy guidelines and other relevant recommendations to the Office of the Chief Justice to streamline and expedite the financial approval process relative to the requests for retirement and civil service benefits.
The lawyer emphasized that the TWG was tasked to “screen applications for retirement benefits and/or similar or related benefits for the purpose of determining whether said applications require further study by the Committee and to study in more detail the legal concerns related to the grant of retirement benefits.”
