MANILA, Philippines - Chief Justice Reynato Puno is taking the fuss over his retirement on May 17 lightly and has even managed to crack a few jokes regarding his birth date.

Speaking at a forum of the Philippine-Australian Alumni Association at the Supreme Court Centennial Building yesterday afternoon, Puno joked about what he described as the “hullabaloo about my retirement from the High Court.”

“I shall be bowing out of office in a few months’ time. I’m the only chief justice whose birthday is announced in the media,” he said in jest.

Citing the hospitable culture of Filipinos, he said he might even end up spending his entire retirement pay on “blow-out parties.”

“I hope that at the end they will not be blaming my parents for conceiving me on the wrong date,” he added.

On a serious note, Puno stressed his retirement from the High Court “has focused on greater constitutional issues and it has brought about so many born-again constitutionalists.”

Puno’s retirement falls within a period covered by the constitutional ban on appointments. A proposal to allow President Arroyo
to appoint his successor before her term ends on June 30 is now subject of intensedebate.

At the center of the controversy are the imminent decisions of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) on whether or not it would submit the shortlist for the appointment of the next chief justice to President Arroyo, and of the SC as to the constitutionality of the proposal.

In the same speech, the chief justice also reiterated that the country needs “transformational leaders” who will “awaken the moral values of their followers,” as he warned against “transactional leaders.”

In line with his campaign for a moral force calling for reforms in government, he criticized some of the country’s present and past leaders for their “self-interest” and “self-centeredness,” which continued to propagate gross economic inequality, social discrimination, poor governance, environmental degradation and apathy.

“A transformational leader focuses first in transforming self to become selfless, to look out for each other, to promote unity and harmony and to give more importance to the interest of the whole more than its parts,” he said, citing US civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. as an example.

Puno said transactional leaders, on the other hand, are those who use money to get support.

“A transactional leader is obsessed with the completion of an objective with little regard to its moral and ethical hazards on his followers,” he said. “Transactional leaders motivate followers by appealing to their self-interest. They approach followers on a quid pro quo basis with an eye to exchanging one thing for another, such as jobs for votes or subsidies for campaign contributions. Leadership to them is more of a transaction, more of business where you get your goal through the bargaining of interests,” he explained.

IBP, AIM statements

Five past national presidents of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines issued yesterday a strongly worded statement on the controversy over the appointment of the next chief justice.

Raoul Angangco, Jose Aguila Grapilon, Arthur Lim, Teofilo Pilando Jr. and Feliciano Bautista said they “strongly condemn the actions of a powerful yet subservient few who are proposing to commence the procedure” to find a replacement for Puno, saying that it was “obviously intended to circumvent the Constitutional provision against midnight appointments.”

“When the powerful begin to misinterpret clear provisions of law to suit their selfish ends, the law becomes a tool for the mighty when it was meant as protection for the weak,” the statement read.

They called on the Judicial and Bar Council to “stand in defense of the rule of law and to restore decency in the process of succession to the highest office in our judicial establishment.”

For its part, the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center said that “the Philippines’ long term economic interests demand” that “President Arroyo must not appoint the next chief justice and Filipinos must unite behind Chief Justice Puno.”

The Center warned that the proposal to appoint the next chief justice ahead of Puno’s retirement “will taint the Office of the Chief Justice as nothing has,” and pointed out that Puno is under attack on two fronts: first, that he retire prematurely to allow Mrs. Arroyo to appoint his successor, and second, to “make him change his mind and refuse refuge in his vote in the case of ‘In Re calenzuela’ (where) the Supreme Court unanimously declared that the ban on President (Fidel) Ramos’ power to make appointments to the judiciary from two months before the elections until the end of his term is absolute.”