I. INTRODUCTION: COURTESY CALLS

“Why would you approach the president? What is the message that you want to make especially if we look at the possibility that you will be aspiring for a higher position?”
Marlon manuel, former convenor of the now disbanded Supreme Court Appointments Watch
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II. DEFERENCE AND LOYALTY TO PRESIDENTS
“The new, post-Marcos, Constitution was primarily supposed to have been designed in order to limit Presidential powers, but in transferring more power to other branches of government, the unintended consequence is that the President remains powerful, but in a less transparent way.”
Legal scholar Desiree Desierto
III. DUTERTE’S WINNING STREAK
“I haven’t seen an appointee of President Duterte vote against him, whereas every president before him had a problem with the court.”
Dan Gatmaytan, a constitutional law professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law.
IV. REFORMING THE JBC
The question is whether the JBC has satisfactorily or merely perfunctorily performed its constitutional duty….
Former chief justice Artemio Panganiban said in a newspaper column
V. THE OTHER BATTLE: BACKLOG
Fix your house and put it in order to shield very brilliant justices of the Supreme Court from this problem
JBC member Court of Appeals justice Vicente Veloso III
VI. CONCLUSION: DIMINISHED COURT
The public perception that they are beyond reproach has eroded through the years. It’s now so easy to file an impeachment complaint.
Marlon manuel, former convenor of the now disbanded Supreme Court Appointments Watch
Photos from PCOO and Supreme Court, caricatures by Joseph Luigi Almuena and Shutterstuck

