LAWYER Lorenzo Gadon told the house panel tackling the impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno that Supreme Court (SC) Office of the Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez is one of his informants.
Gadon said Marquez, who was present in one of the trips wherein Sereno allegedly brought a huge entourage of lawyers, was one of those who gave him information relative to the chief magistrate's impeachment.
Gadon, in his complaint affidavit, said Sereno uses public funds to finance her "extravagant" lifestyle by "unnecessarily" bringing with her in her foreign trips huge entourage of lawyers.
"He (Marquez) was on the same plane and same flight with CJ. He was seated in the economy class while CJ, his security and staff are in business class," Gadon told the committee on justice.
In Sereno's reply affidavit earlier sent to the justice committee, she said that under the Supreme Court Human Resource Manual, she can be allowed to travel on full business class.
Marquez was one of the witnesses invited by the committee to testify in the succeeding hearings on the determination of probable cause in the impeachment complaint against Sereno.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court en banc, in a unanimous decision, allowed the members of the SC to appear before the house committee on justice, if they wish to do so.
Invited Court employees aside from Midas are Clerk of Court Felipa Anama and the associate justices, including those relative to the investigation, Teresita Leonardo De Castro and Noel Tijam.
House committee on justice chair Reynaldo Umali said he expects all the invited Court employees to join Wednesday's hearing.
Aside from Sereno's supposed extravagant flight, allegations that would fall under Gadon's corruption charge against the Chief Justice is her alleged purchase of a P5-million worth of vehicle and her hiring of an IT consultant for P250,000 a month without public bidding. (SunStar Philippines)