[The Slingshot] How Andres Reyes Jr. fares in accountability

Is Reyes the precise man as former DPWH secretary Rogelio ‘Babes’ Singson is? Let the Reyes voting report be the decide.

When Supreme Court docket justices genuflect to the political pursuits of their appointing energy, they lose all their dignity as magistrates of truthful verdicts. Not within the Philippines the place they persist to take pleasure in their exalted places of work and all of the accompanying perks of the place. Within the Philippines, it’s okay to be a shameless justice of the HIgh Court docket.

The six years of Rodrigo Duterte would have been a redemption interval for the Supreme Court docket when justiciable questions had been introduced earlier than it that had Duterte-interest implications.

When Duterte appointed Andres Reyes Jr. to the Supreme Court docket in July 2017, he was seen as any person totally different. He was neither a graduate of San Beda Legislation nor a fraternity brother of Duterte. Reyes was a graduate of Ateneo de Manila Legislation Faculty and was the primary graduate of that college to be appointed by Duterte to the Excessive Court docket.

One 12 months later, in 2018, Reyes turned a nominee for Chief Justice when Teresita Leonardo de Castro retired after serving the shortest time period of any CJ. When one is a nominee, your voting report historical past is laid naked for the general public’s notion. The observe is nice till it’s imagined to knock them out from their callousness to public opinion as a god of Padre Faura. Most often it doesn’t.

It’s thus a public curiosity difficulty that we study the voting historical past of Reyes now that he’s tasked as head of the Unbiased Fee for Infrastructure. The duty is to uncover the large corruption — and collusion — of politicians with the Division of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). After all we have now identified since way back that there’s corruption amongst politicians and the DPWH. However this time, the general public clamor is vaster: accountability. And it’s convoyed by anger.

Is Reyes the precise man as former DPWH secretary Rogelio “Babes” Singson is? Let the Reyes voting report be the decide.

Let’s start with the plunder fees in opposition to Jinggoy Estrada in 2018. The difficulty was to uphold the Ombudsman’s indictment of Estrada for plunder. How did Reyes vote? He dissented, that means that he was for the exoneration of Estrada. With Diosdado Peralta, Reyes cited a technicality — that there was a deficiency within the Estrada indictment.

The Jinggoy case was clearly an accountability difficulty of a excessive public official concerned in a excessive profile case — pocketing one’s pork barrel by allocating it to pretend nongovernment organizations. It was a part of the Napoles rip-off. 

Solely 4 justices dissented. Six voted to uphold the indictment and Reyes was not amongst them.

How will Reyes deal with Estrada this time? There’s a yawning black gap of public doubt on that.

Probably the most controversial difficulty delivered to the SC below the Duterte regime was the query of validity of the arrest of Duterte nemesis Leila de Lima. That arrest has now gone down in historical past as vendetta; De Lima had then-mayor Duterte investigated in 2009 by the Fee on Human Rights for the extrajudicial killings of the Davao Loss of life Squad (DDS). 

Duterte was nearly uncovered — some DDS operatives and barangay leaders of Davao Metropolis had supplied incriminating data to the CHR that might have pinned down Duterte as straight giving the kill orders.

How did Reyes vote? He concurred that the De Lima arrest was legitimate. Reyes selected the foul aspect of being an affiliate justice as a result of that was a vote in opposition to accountability. De Lima was wrongly jailed for seven years. Can Reyes nonetheless sleep at evening with a transparent conscience? 

One other principal difficulty below the Duterte regime was Duterte’s objective to have then-chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno ousted. Duterte was relentless as a result of Sereno was vocal in her criticism of the extrajudicial killings. 

Once more, the accountability of the president was questioned. Nobody however nobody questions Duterte, even in case you are chief justice of the land. Therefore the assault canine military of Duterte, led by his solicitor normal then, Jose Calida, tried all routes. The primary was impeachment.

Within the Home, the speaker was an assault canine as effectively: any person from Davao del Norte surnamed Alvarez who was insignificant, his private life marred by cautionary tales. However being an assault canine gave him a lot grandstanding earlier than the general public’s eyes. He was tasked with the impeachment prong, whereas Calida was tasked for the quo warranto.

The latter was swift. By a vote of 8-6, the Supreme Court docket nullified Sereno’s appointment by quo warranto. Who the place the eight? They had been Teresita Leonardo de Castro (later to grow to be the Philippines’ first consuelo de bobo chief justice), Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Francis Jardeleza, Samuel Martires, Alexander Gesmundo, Noel Tijam, and Andres Reyes Jr.

No, Reyes is the incorrect man for an accountability fee just like the ICI.

What extra may be stated of Reyes? Nothing. We relaxation our case. – Rappler.com