REFLECTING her silly yet arrogant character, Maria Lourdes Sereno intends—when she is kicked out by her colleagues for having no warrant (i.e., authority) for the Chief Justice post today—to do a “Trillanes” or a “Querubin.”

She intends to ape what then Navy Lt. junior grade Antonio Trillanes 4th and his Magdalo mutineers foolishly did during President Gloria Arroyo’s administration. They occupied the Oakwood Premier Hotel in 2003 and then the Manila Peninsula in 2007, in their drunken dream that Filipinos will surround their “redoubts” to trigger a People Power Revolt to oust Arroyo, similar to what happened in 1986 when then defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and his RAM rebels holed up in Camp Crame for a last stand of sorts.

When only a few “usiseros” milled near the hotels out of curiosity, Trillanes and his gang, after they had consumed the prime steaks and French wine there, and more importantly after they heard the distinct rumble of the Army’s armored personnel carriers, promptly surrendered to the police. Years later, he would blame then Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay for betraying them, purportedly because the politician didn’t mobilize his masses to surround the hotels as he had promised. 

The shorter, and sillier melodrama Sereno will be trying to mimic is that of then Marine Col. Ariel Querubin, who with his security platoon barricaded themselves in 2006 in their Fort Bonifacio headquarters. Like Trillanes, they were hallucinating that that they would spark a “People Power” against Arroyo who the day before had declared a state of emergency and ordered the arrest of their comrades who were very clumsily planning a coup. Former president Cory Aquino and her son Benigno 3rd tried to join the mad Marine, but were turned away by the camp’s military police. After learning that, Querubin’s ended his drama that lasted for seven hours.

Quite as doltish is her supporters’ plan to undertake what they’ve called a “Jericho March” at the Supreme Court today, which blogger Belinda Olivares-Cunanan says will be participated in by “thousands of Filipinos.” They’re of course clumsily implying that their cause is as just and as holy as the biblical myth of the Israelites causing the walls of the ancient city of Jericho to crumble through their shouts and their priests’ horns.

Don’t they realize that even Jews seldom mention that Battle of Jericho today as it confirms what archaeologists are starting to uncover, that the Israelites were invaders from some still unidentified area who unjustly kicked out the original Canaanite residents of what they would later call Israel, just as the European Jews 2,000 years later did to Palestinians?

Do they really believe that they can browbeat the Supreme Court to bow down to Sereno and her supporters on a matter of law, and especially one which directly affects them since she has wrecked the prestige of the high tribunal, and has even been trying to rule over them like a boss, when it is supposed to be a collegial body?

The ridiculousness of Sereno’s Jericho March today simply reflects the utter stupidity of her and her supporters’ arguments against the quo warranto case being deliberated today by the Supreme Court en banc, as expressed in expensive paid ads in mainstream newspapers,

The statement claims that the Supreme Court should adhere to the Constitution and reject the quo warranto case, since the Chief Justice can be removed, they claim, only through an impeachment trial undertaken by the Senate.

Isn’t that claim idiotic as it invokes only a provision of the Constitution favorable to Sereno, and not its other provisions, the most important of which is that it is the Supreme Court that is the final interpreter of what is legal or not, of what the Constitution means and doesn’t mean. The Constitution’s Article 8 Section 5 is even categorical in this case, that among the Supreme Court’s powers is to “exercise original jurisdiction over petitions for … quo warranto, and habeas corpus.”

Among those listed as having signed those statements are mostly Aquino loyalists like Ging Deles, Mar Roxas’ cousin Karina David, Yoly Ong, leftist clerics like Sister Mary John Mananzan, mutineers who spat on Constitution like Trillanes and Gary Alejano, and communist cadres like Carlos Zarate and Teddy Casiño.

Isn’t it the height of silliness bordering on hilarity that these people, even Sereno herself who has never been in a courtroom, are telling the Supreme Court how to interpret the Constitution?

What a silly country we’ve become, when a silly lady whom a President suspected to be afflicted with Asperger’s syndrome appointed as Chief Justice, could still manage to get supporters threatening to rock the Supreme Court into upholding their side with their Jericho horns.

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