THE Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Davao del Sur chapter will file a motion for reconsideration on the latest decision of the Supreme Court allowing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to appoint the next chief justice.
Lawyer Israelito Torreon, IBP chapter president, said they will be filing a motion for reconsideration as the "blanket prohibition, under the 1987 Constitution, to the President to make appointments within the prohibitory period is very clear that it does not even require an interpretation but application."
"The rule of law must prevail and not the dictates or whims of a fading but infamous regime," Torreon said.
The IBP chapter earlier filed an intervention/opposition to the petition regarding the appointment of the next SC chief justice by President Arroyo.
In Wednesday's SC decision though, the SC voted 9-1-3 in ruling that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could appoint the next Chief Justice.
Lawyer Midas Marquez made the announcement in a press conference at past 11 a.m. at the Supreme Court division hearing room in Manila.
The SC decision was penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin wherein it stated that vacancies in the Supreme Court – the 14 Associate Justices and the Chief Justice – were not covered by the appointment ban under Section 15 Article VII of the 1987 Constitution.
The High Court asked the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to submit a shortlist of nominees to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on or before Chief Justice Reynato Puno's retirement on May 17.
Aside from Bersamin, the justices who voted for allowing Arroyo to name the next Chief were: Associate Justices Jose Perez, Martin Villarama, Roberto Abad, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo, Teresita Leonardo de Castro, and Jose Mendoza.
But Brion, Peralta, Del Castillo, and Mendoza disagreed with Bersamin and the four others that the entire Judiciary was exempted from the appointment ban and clarified that only appointments to the Supreme Court were exempted.
Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales was the lone dissenter.
Those who inhibited themselves from voting were Chief Justice Puno, and Associate Justices Renato Corona and Antonio Carpio. (BOT)