JUSTICE Secretary Leila de Lima yesterday hinted that at least 13 other Supreme Court justices, who were appointed during the Arroyo administration, may also be impeached if they continue favoring the ailing leader in cases pending before the High Court.

De Lima issued the statement a day after embattled Chief Justice Renato Corona lambasted President Aquino III’s tendency to become a dictator.

“And when the Arroyo justices start thinking that in protecting [former President Gloria Macapagal] Arroyo, they are shorn of any accountability, not even by impeachment, then it is time the people, through their representatives in Congress, impeached them. It is time the President and Congress reclaimed the Court for the people,” De Lima said in a statement.

Aside from Corona, other justices appointed by Arroyo are Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Arturo Brion, Roberto Abad, Presbitero Velasco, Jose Mendoza, Jose Perez, Martin Villarama, Lucas Bersamin and Mariano Del Castillo.    

Incidentally, Del Castillo has a separate impeachment case for allegedly plagiarizing a US jurisprudence in resolving the case of comfort women.

Judiciary’s ‘Hello Garci’

De Lima meanwhile described the appointment of Corona as the “Hello Garci” scandal of the judiciary.

De Lima, who was rumored to be eyeing a Senate seat, issued a three-page press statement two days after the embattled Corona delivered a stinging speech accusing President Benigno Aquino III of slowly turning the government into a dictatorship.

She stressed that since Corona’s patron – detained former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – was the beneficiary of the “Hello Garci” scandal, he too was a benefactor of that infamous electoral fraud.

‘‘From the moment of his appointment, Chief Justice Corona was a walking constitutional violation. His appointment was the ‘Hello Garci’ of the judicial department,” the justice chief said.

She added that since Mrs. Aquino was a usurper of power – for allegedly cheating her way to the presidency – so is Corona.

“Unlike the President, all that Corona can show for himself is his illegal and unconstitutional appointment as a usurper to the Office of the Chief Justice by the other usurper Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. And as history shows, usurpers make the worst tyrants, because of their false sense of entitlement to something that was never theirs from the start,” De Lima said.

Corona was accused of being a midnight appointee after being appointed by then president Arroyo allegedly during an appointment ban.  

Summons served

Corona’s office formally received the summons of the Senate requiring him to answer the impeachment suit lodged against him.

His staffer, Rogelio Jubilo Jr., received the document from Senate process servers.

Corona was given 10 days to reply.

Meanwhile, Court Administrator Midas Marquez divulged that several lawyers from different law firms have volunteered to defend Corona for free during the impeachment trial.

Marquez however refused to disclose the names of the lawyers.